After a shoulder injury forced her out of Wimbledon, defending US Open finalist Aryna Sabalenka is looking forward to reaching top form in the summer hard-court season ahead of her "favorite" Grand Slam tournament in New York.
Sabalenka, the world No. 3 and two-time reigning Australian Open champion, announced ahead of the grass-court season that she would skip the Paris Olympics to prioritize her health. After illness affected her at Roland Garros, where she was upset in the quarterfinals by 17-year-old Mirra Andreeva, a shoulder injury derailed Sabalenka's efforts in the season's third quarter, making the her decision to skip the Games both prudent and prescient. She retired from a match at the grass-court tune-up event in Berlin—the first time in her professional career she ever pulled the plug on a match—before pulling out of the third major of the year hours before her first-round match at the All England Club was set to begin.
But she's proclaiming herself fully fit as she returns to the U.S. hard courts this week at the Mubadala Citi DC Open in the nation's capital, a combined ATP and WTA 500 event where she is the top seed. Also playing in the women's event in D.C. are 2022 US Open finalist Ons Jabeur, two-time US Open finalist Victoria Azarenka, and 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu, all of whom also elected to skip the Paris Games, as well as Daria Kasatkina, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Liudmila Samsonova.
Sabalenka's first match in more than a month will be against Kamilla Rakhimova, a qualifier ranked No.105 who, in 2021, reached the third round of the US Open as a lucky loser.
As she met with reporters ahead of the event this week, Sabalenka said that pulling out of Wimbledon, the first Grand Slam she ever missed due to injury since her 2017 major main-draw debut, was a tough call to make, but a necessary one.
"I never pull out from the tournament because of ... injury,” Sabalenka said Monday, per the WTA website. “Even if I was injured, I was still playing. I was still struggling, but being able to play. It was my first experience like that.
“But I decided to take care of my health, to do a proper rehab, get back stronger.”
“I think at the end it was very important for me to take a little break,” she continued. “I had really tough, tough struggles starting from March. It didn’t stop.
“Like mentally, I feel more fresh and more ready to go. I feel it was really much needed, and I’ll be ready.”
With the addition of the D.C. event—her first trip to the tournament in seven years—to her schedule, Sabalenka is expected to play three events ahead of the US Open (she's also entered in the back-to-back WTA 1000 events in Toronto and Cincinnati) in an effort to get match sharp before the year's final major, where she has historically excelled. In four of her six US Opens, Sabalenka has reached the second week; in addition to finishing runner-up to Coco Gauff 12 months ago, she also reached the semifinals in 2021 and 2022.
Ahead of the Flushing fortnight, Sabalenka is also set to star in US Open Mixed Madness, a new event slated for the Tuesday of US Open Fan Week where eight current ATP and WTA stars will compete for $500,000 in prize money in an innovative mixed doubles format. She and Taylor Fritz will team up against Gauff and Ben Shelton; Naomi Osaka and Nick Kyrgios; and Stefanos Tsitsipas and Paula Badosa.
It's a jam-packed schedule even for a player who isn't seeking a rapid return to her best. But it's a challenge that Sabalenka, ever the gamer, is relishing.
"Hopefully this injury will never bother me again and I'll be able to play the next Grand Slam, which is my favorite one. I really want to do well there," she said.
