Sabalenka<\/a>, was not too impressed, suggesting that it interrupted players’ preparations and that the surface – used for practice sessions – was different to the one being used at Caja Magica.<\/p>\n\u201dI was a little confused,” Sabalenka admitted. “I\u2019d like them to do it before the tournament, but now I feel like the surface will be a bit different from the Caja Magica.<\/p>\n
“Also, it\u2019s a huge stadium, so everything is covered. I\u2019d like to focus on the tennis and not on those things. <\/p>\n
“Besides, I\u2019d prefer they do it before or after the tournament, if they\u2019re going to keep the sport there. It\u2019s a unique experience.”<\/p>\n
Sabalenka came through her first round test against Peyton Stearns, who she beat 7-5 6-3 to set up a second round tie against Jaqueline Cristian.<\/p>\n
Although the Belarusian won her opening clash in straight sets, she did not feel that she was at the top of her game.<\/p>\n
\u201dI\u2019m glad to get the win,” she said. “Maybe it wasn\u2019t pretty, but at the end of the match I felt a lot better on the court, so hopefully in the next match I will bring better tennis. <\/p>\n
“It wasn\u2019t easy. I did my hard work before I came here, but the attitude, the sport and the duel weren\u2019t easy. But like I said, I\u2019m glad I got the win.”<\/p>\n
Having lost the Australian Open earlier this year, Sabalenka is looking to continue her fine form heading into Roland-Garros.<\/p>\n
The four-time Grand Slam winner clinched two consecutive titles ahead of the clay swing – the Indian Wells Masters and the Miami Open – where she beat Elena Rybakina and Coco Gauff in the finals, respectively.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka, a two-time Australian Open and US Open winner, will be looking to win her first French Open crown.<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old was undone by Gauff in the final last year, losing in three sets.<\/p>\n
TNT Sports is the exclusive French Open broadcaster in the UK and Ireland. Coverage of every court will be available to watch live on HBO Max.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘Maybe nice guys finish last’ – Gauff’s analogy about her relationship with clay Video credit: SNTV Madrid stars…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[189519,101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-551007","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-madrid-womens-singles-2026-w","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-tennis","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551007","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=551007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}