Aryna Sabalenka is out of Wimbledon, but she's leading a very interesting stat at the event, one in line with her playstyle.
Ever since Sabalenka emerged as a player many talked about the hard-hitting nature of her play. While we've seen big hitters on the WTA Tour many times in the past, the force she brings to the courts is certainly something rather unique to her.
She's always played like that, it's why she's been compared to Serena Williams quite often. While a rather potent way of playing tennis, it's also something that created a lot of trouble for her earlier in her career. The more power put into a shot the trickier it is to control the ball and it's still something she struggles with.
This year has been the best we've seen from Sabalenka overall, as she's been hitting the ball as hard as ever but with a newfound dose of consistency. We've seen her power completely overpower some of the best such as Elena Rybakina in Melbourne and Iga Swiatek in Madrid.
She brought the same playstyle to Wimbledon, and it was going well for most of it as she was hitting plenty of winners in the event. That remained the case in her match against Ons Jabeur, but she didn't have the control she had from the previous days resulting in a lot of errors as well.
Ultimately too many mistakes cost her the match and a chance to become world number one. It's unfortunate for the Belarusian who shared her thoughts about the match in the post-match conference. She likely won't change her style of play, and she shouldn't. It works, it just doesn't work all the time. And if you're wondering how hard she hits?
Her average shot speed at the event finished at 74 mph (119 km/h), which is pretty quick, actually quicker than most of the men. When compared to the ATP average for the event, which is 71 mph (114 km/h), it shows that Sabalenka is just on another level. Not too bad.
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