{"id":56625,"date":"2025-08-10T08:12:04","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T08:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/56625\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T08:12:04","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T08:12:04","slug":"aryna-sabalenka-stunned-as-she-reacts-to-insane-changes-at-cincinnati-open-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/56625\/","title":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka stunned as she reacts to ‘insane’ changes at Cincinnati Open | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> says the changes Cincinnati Open organisers have made to the tournament grounds are ‘insane’. Facilities at the WTA 1000 event have been enhanced for both players and fans as part of a \u00a3200million redevelopment project<\/a> which started the week after last year’s tournament.<\/p>\n

Work started almost immediately after Sabalenka defeated Jessica Pegula<\/a> in the final last August to win the Cincinnati title without dropping a set. Having returned to Ohio to gear up for her defence, the Belarusian has seen first-hand how the grounds have been significantly expanded, a state-of-the-art player clubhouse has been built, and a massive pavilion is in place for fans wanting to take a break from the sun.<\/p>\n

“Oh my god, it\u2019s insane,” said Sabalenka. “Honestly, when I first came here I was like, ‘what\u2019s going on?’ I was like, ‘where am I?’ It took me a little while to feel comfortable in the previous venue and now it’s like we are in a completely different tournament.<\/p>\n

“But honestly I love it so much. It’s more space. You feel a bit free and the locker room is bigger. You are not, like, on top of another player. So it’s insane what they have been able to do in the last year. I am just shocked and I like it.”<\/p>\n

Sabalenka will have been out of competitive action for a month by the time she takes to the court in her first-round Cincinnati clash against Marketa Vondrousova.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old has not featured since losing in the semi-finals of Wimbledon<\/a> to Amanda Anisimova. That was merely Sabalenka’s latest dose of Grand Slam heartbreak as, in this year alone, she lost in the Australian Open<\/a> final to Madison Keys and the French Open final to Coco Gauff<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Three-time Grand Slam winner Sabalenka has taken the positives from those near-misses, however, and she claims to be encouraged by being there or thereabouts at all three majors so far in 2025, with the US Open beginning later this month.<\/p>\n

“I think I was pretty good this season so far in the Slams,” she said. “Yeah, I lost those two finals. I learned really tough lessons. I lost in the semis at Wimbledon<\/a> but the consistency is there.<\/p>\n

“The US Open has always been my favourite slam. I am the defending champion and I love being in this position. It\u2019s a really important part of the season and I really hope that those tough lessons that I learned in the previous Slams are going to help me in this one.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka says the changes Cincinnati Open organisers have made to the tournament grounds are ‘insane’. Facilities at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[7307,13301,30877,101,118,872,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-56625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-cincinnati-open","tag-sabalenka","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-tennis-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56625","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=56625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}