Aryna Sabalenka has spoken about the shoulder injury that forced her to miss Wimbledon this summer and described the setback as a “disaster.”
The world No 2 pulled out of the 2024 Wimbledon Championships on the opening day of the tournament as she had not recovered from her injury. She would have arguably been the favourite for the title at the All England Club if healthy.
The Belarusian star had been forced to retire from her quarter-final match against Anna Kalinskaya in Berlin just over a week before Wimbledon due to the same issue.
After Wimbledon, Sabalenka chose not to compete at the Paris Olympics and instead made her return to action at the WTA 500 event in Washington, where she reached the semi-finals.
The 26-year-old then played the WTA 1000 tournaments in Toronto, where she made the quarter-finals, and Cincinnati, where she claimed the title.
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These three tournaments on the North American hard courts served as the ideal preparation for Sabalenka’s 2024 US Open title-winning campaign.
Sabalenka secured her maiden US Open crown and third Grand Slam title after her triumphs at the last two editions of the Australian Open. She dropped just a single set in her 12 matches across Cincinnati and the US Open.
The three-time major winner has reflected on her shoulder injury and explained she felt it was caused by continuing to play despite feeling she should have stopped.
“It was a disaster for me. I felt like, because I didn’t stop when I had to, I got to the point when I got injured,” she told Tennis.com.
“I thought the only way to get through a difficult challenge was just to work through it, keep focusing on my job. It was too much stress on myself without realising that.”
Following her victory at Flushing Meadows, Sabalenka discussed the difficulty of missing Wimbledon as she also labelled winning the US Open her “dream.”
