Sabalenka says she almost quit when she had serving troubles in 2022
The Belarusian has transformed her serve from the low point of 2022 when she hit 21 double faults in one match and resorted to serving underarm
© Zuma / Psnewz
It seems hard to believe now, with Aryna Sabalenka on top of the world, but it is only three years since her serve – and its problems – were a hot topic in tennis, the Belarusian falling apart in a number of matches after hitting 20+ double-faults.
Decelerating, her serve often fell short in the net, and in Adelaide in 2022, she hit 18 double faults in her first match and 21 in her second, breaking down in tears and even resorting to serving underarm.
Fast forward three years and the world No 1 has three Grand Slam titles to her name and is hunting a fourth, blasting her way into the quarter-finals at the Australian Open for the third year in a row with a 6-1, 6-2 crushing of Mirra Andreeva, having won the title in each of the past two years.
After beating Andreeva, Sabalenka was reminded of how far she has come since 2022 and asked if she had ever considered quitting. The answer was yes.
“There was a point when I was, like, OK, I’m done here,” she said. “I think it’s time to go and do something else in life. You know, I think this is the moment when you have to push yourself to try one more time, because this is the moment where you can turn around things.”
As you can see from the table below, Sabalenka’s serving stats are now good. She was third in 2024 in total aces hit, at 307; seventh in serving points won, with 62.7 percent and seventh in service games won, at 78.5 percent.
Sabalenka praises influence of Gavin MacMillan
And so it proved. After consulting a number of sports psychologists, Sabalenka instead focused on the mechanics of the serve and with enormous effort, fixed her serve, to the point where it is now a big weapon.
“When I look back, I think someone was just forcing me to try something else to improve my serve, because my serve right now is much better,” she said. “Even before that situation happened with my serve, I was serving pretty well, but right now, looking back, it wasn’t enough for winning a Grand Slam.
“At the end, I’m super happy that that happened to me, and I was able to reach out to Gavin… MacMillan (a performance specialist). “We worked on the biomechanics and we improved my serve so much.
“To answer the question how I was able to get out from that situation, I don’t know. Honestly, we tried so many things. You know, at some point you just have to step back, and you have to realise a lot of things in life. You come to the point when you understand that tennis is just tennis? There is bigger things in life.
“You just have to try your best, I don’t know, go through it. You just have to go out there without any fear of losing the match or facing the same struggle one more time. I just have so much love for this sport, and I was just, like, ‘keep trying, keep trying’. Finally I found a way. I improved my serve, and I was able to achieve so many things.”
Sabalenka plays either Donna Vekic or Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the quarter-finals on Tuesday.
