Aryna Sabalenka had a turbulent start to her tennis journey, including many broken racquets, which she talked about in a recent interview.
Sabalenka has long been known as a talented player, but many things needed to be done for her to reach her current position. Right now, the Belarusian is among the best players in the world, and it's not something that happened overnight.
As of Saturday, she is a two-time Grand Slam champion, having bested Qinwen Zheng in the Australian Open final to lift her second trophy. Getting into this position took a lot of time and work, and the beginning of that journey was more than bumpy.
She was a bit of a wild player who broke a lot of racquets, which annoyed her parents quite a bit. This was revealed in a recent interview with Vogue, which Sabalenka did after winning the Australian Open.
The passion for tennis was always there, and while breaking racquets was the wrong way to channel it, her parents encouraged her to fight for every point.
"My parents were always getting crazy because I was breaking the racquet. But the only thing they would say is they would never be pissed at me if you give it your all and you fight for every point. For them, it didn’t matter if I was losing or winning, it’s about giving it all."
"And not breaking the racquets. [laughs] The only thing they got mad at me was breaking the racquets. Before I was 12 years old, I broke six or seven racquets, which is a lot."
That passion is still present for Sabalenka, who is one of the hardest hitters on the WTA Tour. She just goes all out when she's on a tennis court, and it's pretty amazing to match. It's quite effective, too, as the two major trophies highlight.
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