Aryna Sabalenka insists she tried not to think much about the Year-End No. 1 ranking at the WTA Finals but after she managed secure it and saw all the headlines and heard all the chatter, it distracted her and led to two surprising losses.
Coming into the season-ending tournament, the two-time Australian Open champion’s lead was 1,046 ranking points over Iga Swiatek. And the 26-year-old had everything in her hands and the majority of scenarios were favoring her.
At the start of her Riyadh campaign, Sabalenka won her first two matches and the expectation was that the Pole would beat Coco Gauff and also improve to 2-0. But then, the four-time French Open champion lost to the American so the Belarusian didn’t anymore need to win her group-stage finale to clinch the world No. 1 finish in 2024.
That mentally impacted this year’s US Open winner, who lost to Elena Rybakina in three sets in her last Round Robin match. Then, she was also bounced by Gauff in the semifinal. Before the losses to the Kazakh and the American, the Belarusian tennis star had won 22 of her past 23 matches. Also, she didn’t have any back-to-back losses previously in the season.
After concluding her ATP Finals campaign, the 26-year-old joined Andy Roddick on the latest episode of his podcast and there she…
