{"id":34076,"date":"2026-06-17T16:24:47","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T16:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/17\/aryna-sabalenka-is-searching-by-ben-rothenberg\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T16:24:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T16:24:47","slug":"aryna-sabalenka-is-searching-by-ben-rothenberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/17\/aryna-sabalenka-is-searching-by-ben-rothenberg\/","title":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka Is “Searching” – by Ben Rothenberg"},"content":{"rendered":"


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BERLIN, Germany <\/strong>\u2014 As is the case most years, there\u2019s a stacked draw here at WTA 500 Berlin. Fittingly, the first player I spoke to here was the woman at the very top of the rankings.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aryna Sabalenka is currently in her 95th week at the WTA No. 1 ranking, including 87 weeks in a row. <\/p>\n

Sabalenka\u2019s reign has been a fascinating mix of dominance and vulnerability. She\u2019s had an iron grip on that top spot, but she\u2019s only won one of the six majors held during her current run at No. 1. <\/p>\n

Sabalenka\u2019s reliability in making it deep at majors is well known, but <\/span>her recent quarterfinal loss<\/a> at Roland Garros was shocking, losing 10 games in a row to Diana Shnaider and crashing out of a match she was seemingly controlling. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
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\"How<\/picture><\/div>\n
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How Aryna Sabalenka Blew It in the Wind<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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On Monday at her pre-tournament media availability in Berlin, her first time speaking publicly since leaving Paris, I asked Sabalenka about that defeat, which she admitted was \u201ctough to process.\u201d <\/p>\n

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<\/a>

Aryna Sabalenka on Monday in Berlin. (Photo by Ben Rothenberg for <\/span>Bounces) <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Sabalenka then gamely opened up about speaking with a psychologist in recent weeks to try to explore and understand why collapses like that can happen to her.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m just trying to dig deep in my brain\u2014which is probably not a good idea.\u201d<\/strong> \u2014Aryna Sabalenka<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

We also spoke about being willing to be vulnerable and to make changes despite being at the top of the sport. Lastly, we spoke about her relationship to grass, a surface on which she\u2019s played well in her career but has not <\/span>yet<\/em> won any title.<\/span><\/p>\n

To read our full exchanges, please subscribe to <\/strong><\/em>Bounces<\/strong>! -Ben<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n


<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BERLIN, Germany \u2014 As is the case most years, there\u2019s a stacked draw here at WTA 500 Berlin. Fittingly, the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_animmysite_disable_animation":false,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!bT2v!,w_1200,h_675,c_fill,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0ddc2b48-c16f-4abd-9774-e8d93b702c6a_4284x2861.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[212],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}