NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Aryna Sabalenka has appeared to be having fun everywhere but the tennis court lately.<\/p>\n
Her Instagram account is filled with photos where she is fashionably dressed in beautiful settings, or lounging in a bikini in relaxing ones. Life looks great.<\/p>\n
On the court, it\u2019s as bad as it\u2019s been in a while.<\/p>\n
The top-ranked women\u2019s player hasn\u2019t even gotten past the fourth round of her last few tournaments, and she hardly looks ready to become the first player to win three straight U.S. Open titles since Serena Williams from 2012-14. <\/p>\n
Sabalenka doesn\u2019t sound concerned. She sounds defiant.<\/p>\n
Her response to those wondering what\u2019s wrong with her game: \u201cMaybe there\u2019s something wrong with people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
To those who don\u2019t like the black mesh-covered outfit she\u2019s wearing on the court in New York: \u201cWho cares about people, right? All matters for me is that I love it,\u201d Sabalenka responded.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka looked headed for a superb season at the start of the year. She lost in the Australian Open final to Elena Rybakina, but then won back-to-back hard-court titles at Indian Wells and Miami. Even after she was knocked out by Naomi Osaka in the fourth round at Wimbledon, it was assumed Sabalenka would quickly return to form when she came back to North America and the hard courts where her power is so tough to handle. <\/p>\n
Then she was upset by Ekaterina Alexandrova in the fourth round in Toronto and blew leads in both sets and was ousted by Sara Bejlek in Cincinnati, appearing frustrated at times with her game the way she used to earlier in her career.<\/p>\n
She won\u2019t specify what was wrong, but hinted that everything wasn\u2019t right.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t the best period. I don\u2019t want to defend myself, but obviously I just don\u2019t want to talk about that period. I\u2019ve been dealing with several things,\u201d Sabalenka said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut who cares, right? Yeah, I didn\u2019t perform my best. These tough lessons are definitely going to make me way, way stronger and working even harder. I work on my mental side of the game. I was trying to reset my mind and to come back stronger, so it\u2019s only going to make me stronger. It\u2019s only a matter of time for me to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n
It wouldn\u2019t be a surprise if it was in New York, where she won the title for the first time in 2024 by beating Jessica Pegula in the final. She defended it last year by topping Amanda Anisimova.<\/p>\n
Reaching the top has given the 28-year-old from Belarus plenty of benefits off the court. Endorsement deals and photo shoots. Vacations during the season to Greece with her fiance. <\/p>\n
It gives critics who see Sabalenka detail all of that on social media the opportunity to question whether it\u2019s too much fun and not enough work.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s still No. 1 in the world. So I think the results are there,\u201d said Paula Badosa, Sabalenka\u2019s friend on tour who has been pictured in some of those photos with her. <\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, everyone is going to expect for her to win every tournament. That\u2019s very, very difficult. And at the moment, that one player is not winning what they expected. Of course, they\u2019re saying that it\u2019s because of the photo shoots or the TikToks and all this stuff, and I\u2019m not going to lie, she\u2019s been doing that since she was maybe out of the top 100. And when she was winning, nobody says anything, you know? And when she loses a couple of matches, it\u2019s because of that. I think it\u2019s none of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The No. 1 ranking is in jeopardy after Sabalenka\u2019s summer swoon. She may need to make a deep run in New York with the likes of Rybakina and Pegula gaining on her.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka has done it before. She may be down now but doesn\u2019t sound like she plans to stay there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, that\u2019s the beauty of the sport,\u201d she said. \u201cThrow tough challenges at me, I will come back only stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full tennis coverage here <\/p>\n
Brian Mahoney, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Aryna Sabalenka has appeared to be having fun everywhere but the tennis court lately.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":875126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-875125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=875125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/875126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}