Aryna Sabalenka's Defiance Amid Struggles Ahead of U.S. Open

NEW YORK — Scroll through Aryna Sabalenka’s Instagram and you’d never guess anything was wrong.

There she is, draped in designer clothes, posing on rooftops and terraces. Sun-soaked in a bikini on some impossibly blue shoreline. Smiling. Relaxed. Life, at least online, looks effortless.

On court, it has been anything but.

The world No. 1 has not gone beyond the fourth round in her last few tournaments. The player who once bullied hard courts into submission suddenly looks vulnerable on them. With the U.S. Open looming, the idea of Sabalenka joining Serena Williams as the only woman in the last decade to win three straight titles in New York feels, on recent evidence, a stretch.

She refuses to see it that way.

Asked what’s wrong with her game, Sabalenka didn’t offer excuses or a tactical breakdown. She fired back.

“Maybe there’s something wrong with people,” she said.

That defiance runs through everything right now, right down to the black, mesh-covered outfit she’s chosen for New York. Some don’t like it. She doesn’t care.

“Who cares about people, right? All matters for me is that I love it,” she said.

This was supposed to be a coronation year. She started 2024 like a player ready to tighten her grip on the sport. A run to the Australian Open final, where she lost to Elena Rybakina, looked like a platform, not a setback. Then came Indian Wells and Miami. Back-to-back titles. Hard courts bent to her will again, her power game thundering through both events.

Even when Naomi Osaka stopped her in the fourth round at Wimbledon, there was no sense of crisis. Grass can be fickle. The expectation was simple: Sabalenka would return to North America, step onto her preferred surface, and resume flattening draws.

That script never arrived.

In Toronto, Ekaterina Alexandrova took her out in the fourth round. In Cincinnati, Sabalenka led both sets against Sara Bejlek and still lost, her frustration spilling out in familiar ways, echoing the more volatile stretches of her early career.

She won’t fully explain what has been going on behind the scenes. She hints instead.

“It wasn’t the best period. I don’t want to defend myself, but obviously I just don’t want to talk about that period. I’ve been dealing with several things,” she said.

There is no self-pity in her voice, only a kind of stubborn resolve.

“Yeah, I didn’t perform my best. These tough lessons are definitely going to make me way, way stronger and working even harder. I work on my mental side of the game. I was trying to reset my mind and to come back stronger, so it’s only going to make me stronger. It’s only a matter of time for me to come back.”

If there is a place for that comeback, it is here.

New York is where Sabalenka first lifted the U.S. Open trophy in 2024, beating Jessica Pegula in the final. She backed it up last year, defending her crown by defeating Amanda Anisimova. The city suits her. The noise, the glare, the demand for boldness — it all matches her game and her personality.

Reaching the summit has changed her life away from the baseline. Endorsement deals. Photo shoots. Midseason getaways to Greece with her fiancé. Her social media reads like a travel and fashion diary, the life of a global No. 1 laid out in curated images.

It also gives critics ammunition.

Every missed backhand, every early exit now gets linked to the lifestyle. Too many shoots, not enough practice. Too much fun, not enough grind. That’s the narrative building around her recent dip.

Paula Badosa, one of Sabalenka’s closest friends on tour and a frequent presence in those photos, is having none of it.

“She’s still No. 1 in the world. So I think the results are there,” Badosa said.

“Of course, everyone is going to expect for her to win every tournament. That’s very, very difficult. And at the moment, that one player is not winning what they expected. Of course, they’re saying that it’s because of the photo shoots or the TikToks and all this stuff, and I’m not going to lie, she’s been doing that since she was maybe out of the top 100. And when she was winning, nobody says anything, you know? And when she loses a couple of matches, it’s because of that. I think it’s none of it.”

The rankings table, though, is less sentimental. Sabalenka’s summer slide has cracked the door open. Rybakina is closing in. Pegula, buoyed by her own consistency, is not far behind. The cushion at the top has thinned. In New York, the math gets real.

A deep run at Flushing Meadows may be required to keep the No. 1 next to her name.

Sabalenka has lived this kind of pressure before. She knows what it takes to play with a target on her back in Arthur Ashe Stadium, to carry expectation and still swing freely. The question is whether the version of her that stormed through Indian Wells, Miami and two U.S. Opens can reappear on command.

She sounds convinced it will.