{"id":543588,"date":"2026-04-21T22:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T22:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/543588\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T22:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T22:18:08","slug":"sabalenka-cheers-on-badosa-from-her-players-box-in-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/543588\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabalenka cheers on Badosa from her player’s box in Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paula Badosa had a friendly face in her player’s box at the Mutua Madrid Open on Tuesday: best bud and World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka was supportive through Badosa’s first-round match against Austrian Julia Grabher, watching the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz action closely and cheering on her winners. She also offered encouragement to the former World No. 2 before the match, she told reporters.<\/p>\n

“She knows that I’m always there for her,” the top seed said on media day. “I always try to help as much as I can, give her advice, but sometimes I also give her some time. She knows that whenever she asks for something, I’m always there for her. And I really hope that she’ll come back [to] the top, because I feel like this is where she belongs and I really wish her the best.”<\/p>\n

Sabalenka and Badosa practiced together before the tournament at La Caja Magica, and they’ve shared the court as doubles partners — most recently in Brisbane, where they beat Liudmila Samsonova and Shuai Zhang before pulling out of their quarterfinal match.<\/p>\n

But their relationship didn’t necessarily get off on the best foot, Sabalenka said, and it took some time for their friendship to blossom.<\/p>\n

“With Paula, it all started in a rather curious way,” Sabalenka told Spanish magazine Yo Dona<\/a>. “We decided to play doubles together almost by chance. At first, we didn’t get along very well. In fact, when we started talking more, I confessed that I thought — let’s see how to put this politically correct — that [she] wasn’t very nice, and she told me she thought exactly the same about me.<\/p>\n

“But, as we got to know each other, we realized that we were very similar, and that we weren’t as unfriendly as we thought (laughs). That’s how it all began.”<\/p>\n

Since then, they’ve developed into close confidantes, both personally and professionally.<\/p>\n

Badosa, who came into Madrid ranked No. 103 in the PIF WTA Rankings, ended up losing her match to Grabher 7-6 (3), 4-6, 6-0.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka, a three-time champion in Madrid, received a bye into the second round. She’ll play American Peyton Stearns in the Round of 64 on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paula Badosa had a friendly face in her player’s box at the Mutua Madrid Open on Tuesday: best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,1602,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-543588","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-text","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}