Aryna Sabalenka opened up about the beginnings of her tennis career when she didn’t have the best people around her.
Sabalenka is now a three-time Grand Slam champion and the reigning WTA World No. 1 player, but getting there wasn’t easy. She had to go through many ups and downs, and early on in her career, the Belarusian also had unpleasant experiences with some of the people that she worked with.
Since tennis is an individual sport, early in their careers, tennis players have a relatively close relationship with their coach. That’s when it, unfortunately, becomes possible for the players not to be treated nicely.
It’s something that many tennis players experience, and it seems that Sabalenka had a similar experience. After the 2025 Indian Wells Open final, in which she lost to Mirra Andreeva, the Belarusian player told Andreeva during the trophy ceremony that she wished she had the same team at her age as the Russian player does.
Of course, Sabalenka, who is now coached by Anton Dubrov, then clarified that she is very happy with her team right now, but made it clear that she worked with some questionable people before.
Naturally, the top seed was asked about her comment during her post-match press conference. She explained that when she was a teenager, like Andreeva, she was surrounded by “wrong people.”
“I’d say that, for example talking about me at that age, I was surrounded by so many wrong people. Finally, when I was able to get rid of those people and, how to say, I surrounded myself with the right people, you kind of like you have more confidence, and everything is more calm and the atmosphere in the team is very healthy. So the team is very important.”
“I can see she has her family who is helping her, I’m sure, with a lot of decisions. She has Conchita, who is a really experienced person and a very nice person. She doesn’t have the abusive things.”
“Definitely, she got the right team much earlier, and that’s why she’s so successful right now. So it’s nice to see that there are players who are able to surround — maybe it’s not about her, it’s more about maybe her family, because she’s still too young, and maybe it’s kind of like a team decision, family decision.”
“So it’s nice to see, and I’m happy for her. Yeah, I wish I would have my team, my current team, at that age. Probably would be much bigger by now.”
At the same time, Sabalenka also added that she doesn’t regret the decisions that she made in the past. She thinks that it made her mentally stronger.
“Well, I don’t have any regrets, because it’s my experience. Because of that experience, I’m much more mature right now and I know things (smiling). But of course, I wish I would be a little bit smarter at that age or I would listen to my family a little bit more.”
