Aryna Sabalenka has revealed that she contemplated stepping away from the sport last year due to her country’s link to the war in Ukraine.
In an upcoming episode for the second part of Netflix’s Break Point documentary, the world No.2 says she struggled with life on the Tour due to the conflict. In February 2022 Russia launched a military offensive on Ukraine which has claimed thousands of lives. Belarus, which is where Sabalenka is from, is accused of supporting the conflict and allowing troops to be based in their country.
Amid the tensions in the locker room between some players, Sabalenka said she felt like she was hated by everybody. Tennis’ governing bodies have refused to ban Russian and Belarussian players from competition as they argue that players should not be punished for the actions of their governments. However, they are only allowed to play on the Tour under a neutral status and are currently suspended from ITF team events.
“I’m from Belarus so I felt really bad. It’s tough. It’s really tough what they’re dealing with. If I could have any control of it, then of course, I would do everything I can to stop everything,” The Express quoted Sabaleka as saying in an upcoming episode for Break Point.
“Everyone started talking about, ‘You have to ban all the players from Russia and Belarus’ and I thought that everyone is looking weird to me, you know? I felt like everyone hates me because of my country.”
At this year’s French Open, the 25-year-old did not do two open press conferences with journalists due to mental health reasons. Her decision to do so came after her second round match when she was challenged by one journalist about her support for Belarus’ president Alexander Lukashenko. Later in the tournament, she said she didn’t support the political figure due to his involvement in the war. However, it is unclear what her stance is on Lukashenko when it comes to other factors such as his controversial re-election in 2020.
In a separate incident that happened at the 2022 French Open, she spoke about receiving abusive messages on social media. One of them said ‘‘You better die and I wish all your family will die with cancer.’
In one scene, Sabalenka is heard saying in Russian to her team that she wants to quit tennis due to the backlash she has received.
“Don’t tell me not to worry. Now everyone is watching me f***ing losing it. I just don’t want to play tennis anymore. End of. It’s all telling me I should quit,” she told them.
However, she said she didn’t quit due to her late father, Sergey. Sergey passed away suddenly in November 2019 at the age of 43. He was a former ice hockey player.
“Honestly, I thought that I was going to stop playing tennis because it was so bad. But it was our dream with my dad and I was like, ‘I cannot quit. He wouldn’t accept this.’ She said.
“He would say like, ‘You f***ing kidding me? You’re going to be tough, like a champion.’ And I was like, ‘No, I have to keep going. I just have to.’”
Since then, Sabalenka won her maiden Grand Slam title earlier this year at the Australian Open.
