{"id":754207,"date":"2026-08-30T04:22:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T04:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/754207\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T04:22:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T04:22:18","slug":"sabalenka-always-confident-as-she-eyes-third-straight-us-open-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/754207\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabalenka ‘always confident’ as she eyes third-straight US Open title"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aryna Sabalenka brushed off concerns about her slumping form on Friday as she prepared to launch her bid for a third straight US Open crown.<\/p>\n

The world number one from Belarus arrives in New York following a disappointing run of recent results and has not won a tournament since her victory in the Miami Open in March.<\/p>\n

However, the four-time Grand Slam singles champion insists she is ready to turn the page at Flushing Meadows over the next fortnight, a venue that has been a happy hunting ground for her in recent years with back-to-back wins in 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n

“Always confident,” the 28-year-old told reporters about her mindset.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka<\/a> started the year in blistering form, with a win in Brisbane before reaching the final of the Australian Open, where she lost in three sets to Elena Rybakina<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She bounced back from that loss to complete the ‘Sunshine Double’ with wins at Indian Wells and Miami but has not challenged for a title since.<\/p>\n

She exited in the quarter-finals at the French Open and was bundled out in the fourth round at Wimbledon by Naomi Osaka<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Those defeats were followed by fourth-round exits at the Canadian Open and Cincinnati Open earlier this month, leaving Sabalenka with everything to prove heading to New York.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka, though, said she is confident of playing her way out of poor form.<\/p>\n

“That’s the beauty of sport,” she said. “Throw tough challenges at me, I will come back only stronger.<\/p>\n

“It wasn’t the best period. I don’t want to defend myself, but obviously I just don’t want to talk about that period. I’ve been dealing with several things.<\/p>\n

“But who cares, right? I didn’t perform my best. These tough lessons are definitely going to make me way, way stronger and working even harder.<\/p>\n

\"SabalenkaSabalenka looks on during practiceSarah Stier \/ GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA \/ Getty Images via AFP \/ Profimedia<\/p>\n

“I work on my mental side of the game. I was trying to reset my mind and to come back stronger, so it’s only going to make me stronger. It’s only a matter of time for me to come back.”<\/p>\n

Sabalenka could become only the third woman after Chris Evert and Serena Williams<\/a> to win three consecutive US Opens if she claims the fifth Grand Slam title of her career in New York.<\/p>\n

“They’re the biggest, and they’re legends. I was growing up looking up to them, and I loved the way they dominated the tour,” Sabalenka said.<\/p>\n

“So if I would be able to put my name kind of, like, slightly next to them, that means a lot to me.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka brushed off concerns about her slumping form on Friday as she prepared to launch her bid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-754207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754207","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=754207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}