How the decision to step back paved Sabalenka’s path to No.1

RIYADH, Saudia Arabia -- The day before Wimbledon began, Aryna Sabalenka and her team gathered on Court 1 of the Aorangi Park practice facility.

She played some spirited points with her good friend Ons Jabeur before getting down to the critical test.

“We were out there on the court, last chance to serve,” her coach Anton Dubrov said. “It was hard to watch. After like three, four motions we saw it.”

That prompted an intense discussion within the small group. To load up on treatment and tablets and play through a nagging shoulder injury -- or hit pause?

“What are the chances?” Dubrov continued. “If we’re going to push it too much, we might lose the whole season.”

Weighing the risk: A tough call to make

We now know that Sabalenka’s 2024 season was an unqualified success. Here at the WTA Finals Riyadh presented by PIF, she won her first two group matches -- and when Iga Swiatek lost to Coco Gauff on Tuesday night, Sabalenka locked down the year-end No.1 ranking.

WTA Finals Riyadh: Scores | Schedule | Standings

But four months ago, it seemed like only a remote possibility. At the time, the central question, according to Dubrov: How do we take the maximum opportunity?

A younger Sabalenka probably would have gone for it, taken some medication to dull the ache, swung and slashed her way through as many matches as she could. But, the question was, how would that compromise her overriding goal for the year to finish as the Hologic WTA Tour’s No.1-ranked player?

A little more than a week before Wimbledon, Sabalenka had felt a sharp pain in her right shoulder during a Berlin quarterfinal match against Anna Kalinskaya. She had tweaked the teres major muscle, situated just below the armpit and one of 13 muscles that help extend and rotate the humerus (upper arm) bone. Ultimately, she made the difficult decision to retire with Kalinskaya leading 5-1 in the opening set.

Wimbledon was next, and Sabalenka desperately wanted to play.

“As someone who has been fighting through a lot of different pains in the past months,” she said in Berlin, “I still have my hopes.”

The funny thing? Sabalenka could lift weights, practice, even hit her lethal groundstrokes. She just couldn’t serve without feeling pain.

“That’s really annoying,” Sabalenka said. “You don’t feel like you’re injured, We did a MRI, we did everything. We did a lot of rehab, a lot of treatments and everything.”

In 2023, she had wrested the No.1 ranking from Iga Swiatek for a period of eight weeks -- only to see Swiatek grab it back by winning her last 11 matches. As Wimbledon opened play, Sabalenka trailed Swiatek by 3,744 points.

There were other factors, too. Because she was unable to play Wimbledon in 2022, due to the growing conflict in Ukraine, it would mean she missed the prestigious tournament twice in three years. Wimbledon’s venerable grass venue enhances Sabalenka’s dynamic game and she had reached the semifinals in her two previous appearances. She was the No.3 seed but remained the favorite going in, and the winner’s 2,000 ranking points were a tempting, tantalizing target.

Stepping back paved the way for success

Every instinct, every emotion was pushing Sabalenka toward playing her scheduled first-round match with Emina Bektas of the United States. And yet, she and her team managed to focus on the larger picture.

“Heartbroken to have to tell you all that I won’t be able to play The Championships this year,” Sabalenka said in a social media post. “I tried everything to get myself ready, but unfortunately my shoulder is not cooperating. I pushed myself to the limit in practice today to try my best, but my team explained that playing would only make things much worse.

“This tournament means so much to me and I promise I’ll be back stronger than ever next year.”

Five months later, at the WTA Finals Riyadh, Sabalenka had one word to describe that decision, and the discussions that led to it.

“Wow,” she said, shaking her head.

“Very, very difficult decision for me,” she said, “because I never, never withdrew from the tournament due to the injury. That was first time I experienced something like that.

“Even though it was not the huge, big, tough injury -- I recovered quickly -- I would say, but still it was, mentally, it was very difficult.”

When the forensic archeologists go back to investigate Sabalenka’s brilliant season, they will likely unearth this decision as the critical-mass moment that made it possible. The moment Sabalenka and her team saved her season and, perhaps, changed the trajectory of one of its brightest stars and had a modest part in altering the history of women’s professional tennis.

The lesson? Giving in doesn’t necessarily mean giving up. Less, as painful as it might seem at the time, can sometimes lead to more.

“I agree 100 percent,” 18-time Grand Slam champion Martina Navratilova said. “Players today, they’re better about scheduling themselves.”

Between singles and doubles, Navratilova averaged nearly 120 matches in her 22 full seasons. In her era, regardless of their physical condition, players played on. If Sabalenka reaches the final in Riyadh, she’ll finish the year with 71 matches.

“You can get that break or two during the season and still not lose that much,” Navratilova said. “I wish I had done that, but it never occurred to me.” 

Holding fire: How skipping Paris kept her season blazing

Because the Olympic tournament was dropped into an already crowded calendar, this was was always going to be difficult for the leading players. Team Sabalenka had already dealt with that question, opting to skip the Paris Games, even though all of the leading players, with the exception of Elena Rybakina, participated.

The Olympics decision was made much earlier.

“Beginning of the clay season,”: Dubrov said. “We had a big calendar, four big events in the summer -- Roland Garros, Wimbledon, Olympics and US Open. It’s clay, grass, back to clay and hard courts. There’s no proper preparation for the hard courts.

“It’s not only physical. Emotionally you have to keep recovering yourself. Percentage-wise, our chances on clay, we thought she had a better chance if we skip it.

The abrupt switch from the grass at Wimbledon, back to the red clay of Roland Garros (for the second time in less than two months), was a deal-breaker. In retrospect, good judgment might have been the secret power of Sabalenka’s team. After withdrawing from Wimbledon, she returned to her Miami home and focused on rehab.

A winning comeback: the path to No.1

With the greatest players from around the world gathered in Paris, following an almost six-week break, Sabalenka began practicing in Washington, D.C., intent on building a successful summer season. After more discussion, she decided to give it a go. Kamilla Rakhimova, ranked No.78, took her to three sets.

Playing with caution, Sabalenka won two matches there and two more in Toronto. It was in Cincinnati that Sabalenka found her championship form.

Dubrov saw it even before she took the WTA 1000 title. “She’s actually getting, better, better, better,” he thought to himself.

“Yes,” he said sitting in the Riyadh players’ lounge, “that’s when I knew we made the right decision not to play Wimbledon and the Olympics.”

Sabalenka followed that up with her third Grand Slam singles title at the US Open. Her 15-match winning streak ended in Beijing, but she recovered to win the title in Wuhan.

It was in her second match in Wuhan, after she beat Yulia Putintseva, Sabalenka moved ahead of Swiatek for the No.1 ranking. After Swiatek skipped the Asian swing and had points deducted for missing mandatory events, Sabalenka came into Riyadh with a more than 1,000-point lead.

“The game is more physical now, the body needs longer to recover, there’s no doubt about it,” Navratilova said. “Today, they realize it’s OK to take a break.

“I called it this summer. I said most of the people coming into the US Open, they’re going to have their tongues hanging out -- and Sabalenka’s coming in fresh as a daisy, laughing all the way.”

And now, she’s the year-end No.1 ranking for the first time -- and has won 22 of her past 23 matches.

With 100 percent hindsight, it’s easy to see that passing on Wimbledon and the Olympics -- arguably, the season’s biggest events -- allowed it to be possible, both physically and mentally.

“Looking back, it was important moment for me to just sit back, recharge my batteries,” Sabalenka said in Riyadh. “Do great recovery, make sure my shoulder is healed so I can come back stronger. After that little pause, I was super, super hungry for tennis,

“I think it’s definitely helped me to be where I am right now.”