Aryna Sabalenka suffered a disappointing end to her 2026 season, losing to Elina Svitolina in their round-robin clash at the WTA Finals on Friday. The result eliminated the four-time Grand Slam champion from the year-end championships.
Sabalenka entered the match against Svitolina with a 1-1 record and needed to beat the Ukrainian to progress to the semifinals. She was the favorite, with a dominant 6-1 head-to-head lead. However, Svitolina produced an almighty upset, downing Sabalenka 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 to advance to the last four instead of the Belarusian.
Several tennis fans took to Reddit to question Sabalenka’s display, particularly in the one-sided third set that Svitolina dominated. One fan, critical of the Belarusian’s team, wrote:
“Well done Svito. Saba needs to sack her entire team and start again.”
Sabalenka won her opening round-robin match against Karolina Muchova, then lost to Mirra Andreeva.
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Aryna Sabalenka set to suffer another ranking blow after forgettable WTA Finals campaign
Earlier this year, Sabalenka was dethroned by Elena Rybakina at the summit of the WTA rankings. The Belarusian entered the WTA Finals as the World No. 2. However, her stinging losses to Mirra Andreeva and Elina Svitolina at the year-end championships will drop her out of the top two.
Sabalenka is set to be replaced at the No. 2 spot by the rampant Andreeva, who has been in devastating form on her WTA Finals debut. The 19-year-old has not dropped a single set at the event and has registered two 6-0 set wins, one against Svitolina and the other against Sabalenka.
In terms of title wins, Sabalenka’s most recent triumph came in Miami back in March. Since then, she has suffered a string of upsets at some of the biggest tournaments.
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In her Roland Garros quarterfinal outing against Diana Shnaider, she established a commanding 6-3, 4-1 lead. However, Sabalenka proceeded to lose the match 3-6, 7-5, 6-0. After the match, the Belarusian admitted that she had crumbled mentally, an area she will need to focus on in the offseason.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
