{"id":908489,"date":"2026-09-25T00:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T00:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/908489\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T00:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T00:32:12","slug":"how-aryna-sabalenkas-relationship-with-georgios-frangulis-changed-from-a-business-meeting-into-a-surprise-engagement-international-sports-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/908489\/","title":{"rendered":"How Aryna Sabalenka\u2019s relationship with Georgios Frangulis changed from a business meeting into a surprise engagement | International Sports News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"HowAryna Sabalenka\u2019s relationship with Georgios Frangulis (Instagram) Aryna Sabalenka spent the better part of a year dropping hints. At the Brisbane Open in January 2026, she looked into the camera and said, “Thank you to my boyfriend. Hopefully soon I can call you something else.” Two months later, on March 3, Georgios Frangulis got down on one knee beside a swimming pool ringed with candles and hundreds of flowers. Sabalenka’s hands flew to her face. The oval-cut diamond came out of the box, and the world No. 1 finally had her answer. She posted it to Instagram: “I can finally call him something else\u2026 FIANC\u00c9.”<\/p>\n

How did Sabalenka and Frangulis first meet?<\/p>\n

The story begins in early 2024, not at a tennis tournament but in a boardroom. Aryna Sabalenka signed on as a brand ambassador for Oakberry, the global a\u00e7a\u00ed chain Frangulis built from the ground up. He told the press she was “a great example of the future of tennis.” It read like corporate boilerplate. Nobody was expecting what followed.They stayed quiet for weeks. Then in April 2024, about a month after the sudden death of Sabalenka’s former partner, Belarusian hockey player Konstantin Koltsov, the two were seen together publicly for the first time. The timing drew scrutiny. Sabalenka addressed it without evasion. Speaking to The Guardian, she said, “We signed the contract, then we got to know each other. Somehow, we ended up being together.” There was no spin in that. Just honesty.Frangulis is 37, a decade older than Sabalenka. He is a businessman and former motorsport enthusiast who once described racing as one of the few moments when nothing else matters. He also survived thyroid cancer in 2016, having surgery days after his first wedding. He has lived a full life before arriving in Sabalenka’s orbit, and that shapes how he operates around her: present, steady, never hunting the spotlight.<\/p>\n

Who is Georgios Frangulis and what does he do?<\/p>\n

Frangulis is the founder and CEO of Oakberry, a health food company built around a\u00e7a\u00ed bowls with locations across dozens of countries. The Miami-based entrepreneur does not play the celebrity partner role eagerly. He shows up at matches, supports from the sidelines, and largely lets her tennis do the talking.That restraint runs through everything. While Sabalenka’s life plays out in press conferences and under WTA spotlights, Frangulis operates in a quieter register. The proposal reflected that. No stadium announcement, no media rollout. A private setting, a ring, and a video posted the next morning.The tennis world reacted immediately. Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic, Coco Gauff, Paula Badosa, and Amanda Anisimova all left comments. Ilona Maher, the US rugby star, joined in too. For one evening, Sabalenka’s Instagram looked less like an athlete’s page and more like a wedding announcement board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka\u2019s relationship with Georgios Frangulis (Instagram) Aryna Sabalenka spent the better part of a year dropping hints.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":908490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[169829,313823,49,48,144122,115875,82,593,621],"class_list":["post-908489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-aryna-sabalenka-boyfriend","tag-aryna-sabalenka-engagement","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-georgios-frangulis","tag-sabalenka","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-tennis-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908489","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=908489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/908490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=908489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=908489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=908489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}