Arina Sergeevna Sabalenka is a Belarusian professional tennis player, two-time winner of the Australian Open.
Place of Birth, Education
She was born on May 5, 1998 in Minsk, Belarus.
She started playing tennis from an early age. Already at a young age, she was noted for a high level of play at international tournaments.
Career
At the children’s level, Sabalenka did not have any special achievements. She has only five victories under the auspices of the junior ITF, two of which were won in singles.
The situation changed in 2015, when the athlete completely switched to adult tennis.
Under coach Volodymyr Perk, Sabalenka won her first adult ITF title. Later, she began working together with sparring partner Anton Dubrov and physical training coach Vadim Sashurin.
In 2016, Khalil Ibragimov joined the coaching staff, and in a short time the tennis player improved her technique – in particular, increased the speed of the serve.
During this period, she first played for the national team of Belarus in the Federation Cup. Under the mentorship of Ibragimov, she managed to enter the top hundred of the WTA world ranking, but later the athlete decided to change the coach. For six months she trained under the guidance of the Swede Magnus Norman, after which she began to cooperate with Dmitry Tursunov from Russia.
In August 2018, she won her first WTA tournament. During the same year, she won another title and at the end of the season rose to 11th position in the world ranking. She was also named “Rookie of the Year”.
In subsequent years, she continued to improve her game. After completing her cooperation with Tursunov, she trained for some time under the guidance of the German Dieter Kindlemann, and later her mentor was her former sparring partner Dubrov.
Between 2019 and 2021 inclusive, Sabalenka won eight WTA singles titles .
In 2022, it was not possible to replenish the collection, but the athlete achieved notable results in doubles – she has several titles on her account, including victories at Grand Slam tournaments – US Open-2019 and Australian Open-2021.
She started the 2023 season with a triumph in Adelaide, after which she won her first “major” – the title at the Australian Open. In the final, she defeated the 2022 Wimbledon champion, athlete from Kazakhstan Elena Rybakina.
In the same year, she also reached the final of the US Open, and according to the results of the tournament, she topped the WTA world ranking.
At the beginning of 2024, Sabalenka won the Australian Open for the second time in a row. In the semifinals, she took revenge on the American Coco Gauff, who defeated her in the final of the 2023 US Open, and in the title match she defeated the Chinese Zheng Qinwen.
In the summer of 2024, Sabalenka performed with shoulder problems. During the tournament in Berlin, for the first time in her career, she ended the match early in the quarterfinals due to injury. Subsequently, she was forced to refuse to participate in Wimbledon, just a few days before the start of the Grand Slam tournament. Due to shoulder problems, she also missed the Olympic Games in Paris.
By the end of the summer of 2024, she fully recovered from the injury and in September won her third career Grand Slam title, winning the US Open.
Sabalenka started the 2025 season with her third consecutive trip to the Australian Open final, but this time she could not defend her title.
Subsequently, she reached the final of Roland Garros, where she lost to American tennis player Cori Gauff, and at Wimbledon she stopped at the semifinals.
In September of the same year, she won the first Grand Slam victory of the season – she won the US Open for the second time in a row.
Position on the war in Ukraine
Earlier, when asked about her attitude to the full-scale war in Ukraine, Sabalenka avoided direct answers and emphasized only maintaining peace.
In June 2023, she said that she did not support the war and did not want her country to be involved in any conflict. She also emphasized that she had allegedly voiced this position more than once and added that rejection of the war also means a lack of support for Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.
Marital Status
In the period from 2021 to 2024, Sabalenka met with hockey player Konstantin Koltsov.
Since 2024, he has been in a relationship with Brazilian entrepreneur and race car driver of Greek origin Georgios Frangoulis.
