Former ATP player Alex Corretja assessed Aryna Sabalenka's chances of winning the 2024 Roland Garros.
The Belarusian has never been the most natural fit on clay, but she's worked her way to a really solid level on the surface. She's played in several finals and won a couple of trophies, and her level is improving every year.
Former player Corretja was impressed with Sabalenka's progress on clay in recent years. She's become a pretty solid player on clay, basically second only to Iga Swiatek, who is a generational clay talent. After all, she beat the Pole on clay before and nearly made the Roland Garros final last year.
"Sabalenka, she's been improving, improving unbelievably. I mean, I'm very impressed by the way she's hanging in there and handling the whole situation. I think she's already proved to herself that she can do very well on clay. A few years ago, maybe we thought that she was a little bit more inconsistent because she didn't like the surface that much."
As their most recent match in Rome proved, she's obviously not on Swiatek's level on clay, which is why Corretja doubts that she can win the French Open. There are just a couple of things that Swiatek does really well, which gives Sabalenka problems, but she's confident.
Movement is the key thing that bothers her because the Polish player moves better than Sabalenka on clay, and that's a huge advantage when a rally develops.
Unless the court has the altitude of the courts in Madrid to really boost her shots, she can be a bit of a sitting duck against Swiatek. She had a similar problem against Coco Gauff in New York, and Corretja doesn't think she has a solution for it yet.
"Is it going to be Roland-Garros? Well, it's probably the toughest place because Iga has got a little bit of an advantage. But we'll see because they can only meet in the final and that is a long way to go."
0 Comments