Sabalenka Reveals How Simple Change In Forehand Technique Brought 'Fantastic Results'

Wednesday, 04 October 2023 at 02:00

bySebastian Dahlman

Aryna Sabalenka is enjoying the best year of her career, and it didn't come by chance; she worked really hard for it.

The Belarusian has been in amazing form for much of this year going deep at basically all four Grand Slam events. She contested two finals, won one, and lost the other while exiting the other two Grand Slams in the second week as well.

There has been much talk about what actually changed for her and while her mentality and confidence are huge parts of it, that didn't come out of thin air. It was a result of her fixing some flaws in her game, most notably the serve which she turned from a big flaw to a major weapon this year.

Another tweak she did was on the forehand, which generally used to be a simple bulldozer designed to force an opponent in a block return, allowing her to hit another powerful one until the rally ended. It was a good tactic and worked for a while, but eventually, she started to miss more than she hit and a change needed to be made.

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She added some spin and was more selective about the way she played her forehands, and it made all the difference as the world no. 1 revealed at the 2023 China Open, a WTA 1000 tournament in Beijing.

Before, I tried to hit the ball as hard as I could with my forehand. No one explained to me well all the tactical variants I could apply. I know that when I hit hard most of my opponents have to block my shots, but I also made too many mistakes & it frustrated me.

Everything changed when they recommended that I put more spin on the ball, that I look for changes in height at certain moments. I worked a lot on that & it's fantastic to see the results coming.”