TENNIS
Sabalenka: “I should have stopped playing after my ex-boyfriend died”
The Belarusian opened up to ‘The Guardian’ about the episode with her ex-boyfriend and was critical of the fact that Sinner received twice as much prize money as her in Cincinnati.
A smile returned to Aryna Sabalenka’s face after being crowned WTA 1000 champion in Cincinnati on Monday. Something positive at last in what has been a testing year for her with injuries to overcome and, above all, after the tragic death of her ex-boyfriend, former ice hockey player Konstantin Koltsov, last March before the Miami Open.
Time out from tennis
Speaking to The Guardian, Sabalenka feels that in retrospect, maybe she should have taken a break from tennis to deal with a series of personal issues that ended up affecting her mental health. “Once, I lost my father and tennis helped me to go through that tough loss. So at that moment [when Koltsov passed away] I thought I had to just keep going, keep playing, keep doing my thing to separate my personal life from my career life. But at the end I would say I was struggling a lot healthwise because I didn’t stop,” the world No.2 explained.
“It was really emotional and really stressful, and kind of damaged my mental health at that point. Probably, looking back right now, I would say that a better decision would have been to step back, reset and recharge, and start everything over again. But I did what I did. At the end I paid for my decision, but I’m really glad that I have tennis in my life and it’s really helped me go through whatever and get stronger..”
However, she was eventually forced to stop due to a niggling shoulder injury that made her miss Wimbledon and also withdraw from the Olympic Games. “At the end I figured out that it was much needed,” she says. “Now I feel physically and mentally much better and much stronger. It was really sad and I was struggling a lot not to play Wimbledon, of course, but at the same time I was able to take all the benefits from the time. I was doing a lot of rehab and treatment, but I was able to enjoy my life and my time away from tennis, and take all the good sides of not competing on tour”.
Pay gap between men’s and women’s tennis
Sabalenka also took the opportunity to criticize the unequal prize money dished out at the Cincinnati Open, with men’s champion Jannik Sinner taking home $1,049,460 while she took home less than half of that, $523,485, for winning the women’s tournament.
“From the TV point of view, from the ticket selling, from every point of view, it’s unfair. Of course, guys are always going to be physically stronger than women but it doesn’t mean we’re not working as hard as they do. Women deserve to be paid an equal amount of money that men do”.
The 26-year-old, who heads into next week’s US Open as one of the big favorites and hoping to build on the momentum she gained in Cincinnati. However, she admits that like last year, when she lost the final to Coco Gauff, the tournament is going to be fiercely-fought with Iga Swiatek and other candidates such as Elena Rybakina and her great friend, Spain’s Paula Badosa.
“Beating Iga in two sets was crazy and something I’m really happy about. I think it’s something we are working really hard on, to make sure we face each other in the last stages of every tournament – that we keep going with this rivalry between the two of us”.
She concluded, “We cannot forget about Rybakina, about Krejcikova, about Coco. And also Paula is coming back from injury and doing really well. But I would definitely like to see us competing in the last stages of a tournament as often as possible. I think that’s something cool for women’s tennis, to have several big names always reaching the last stages of the tournament; to see this consistency.”