By Richard Pagliaro | Tuesday, Might 19, 2026
Picture credit score: Steven Klein/Vogue
Pleasure and ache are emotional gas that helped energy Aryna Sabalenka to the highest of tennis.
In a new interview with Vogue Magazine, Sabalenka shares how her connection to tennis stays rooted in her relationship along with her father, Sergey, a former hockey participant who launched her to tennis. Sabalenka’s dad died all of the sudden in 2019 and she or he says her want to make her father proud is a major motive she caught with tennis regardless of fading household fortunes.
“Till I used to be perhaps 13, we have been rich,” Sabalenka instructed Vogue. “After which my dad struggled. So many setbacks. I watched him wrestle many instances in his profession however at all times rise up. My dad and mom tried arduous to maintain issues going, and we didn’t actually speak about it. However I knew. Mother and father assume we don’t know, however we all know.”
Learn Aryna Sabalenka’s Vogue Magazine cover story here.
As a 21-year-old Sabalenka was beginning her stand up the rankings, her 44-year-old father died all of the sudden of meningitis in 2019—a loss of life the household feels was preventable and one which the two-time US Open champion stated shattered her youthful sister. Sabalenka stated paramedics twice declined to take her father to the hospital after reducing his temperature.
“I used to be like, let me f–king carry him to the hospital myself if the ambulance isn’t taking him,” stated Sabalenka, who was coaching in Minsk in the course of the November offseason when her dad died. “They took him on the third day, and it was too late.
“It was even more durable for my mother. And I didn’t notice till later how a lot my sister suffered. We have been each daddy’s little women.”
Sabalenka stated she attracts her energy and resilience from her departed dad.
“Tennis was enjoyable [when I started], and I really feel prefer it’s actually necessary for coaches to maintain it enjoyable,” Sabalenka stated. “[My father] was at all times telling me, ‘For those who don’t prefer it, if you wish to give up, simply inform us. You don’t need to pressure your self to do something.’
“There was a interval after I was in all probability 9 after I was near giving up. However I noticed how proud my dad was of me, and I didn’t wish to disappoint him. After which I fell in love once more with the game, rather more than earlier than.”
The four-time Grand Slam champion stated profitable majors is method to honor her father’s reminiscence—and make sure the household identify lives on.
“After I misplaced my father, it’s at all times been my objective to place our household identify within the historical past of tennis,” Sabalenka stated.” Each time I see my identify on that trophy, I’m so pleased with myself, I’m pleased with my household that they by no means gave up on my dream and that they have been doing all the pieces they might to maintain me going.”
Although Sabalenka has come beneath criticism for her someday unstable eruptions on courtroom, together with high-decibel grunting and raging racquet destruction, she defends the fireplace and want saying “it’s okay to go nuts” and launch festering frustration.
“Once I was younger, I might get emotional, after which I might get actually pissed with myself for getting emotional,” Sabalenka instructed Vogue. “Now I perceive that it’s okay to throw the racket. It’s okay to yell one thing. It’s okay to go nuts when you really feel such as you’re holding an excessive amount of in.
“Generally you simply have to let it go, to empty it so that you’re prepared to begin over and play the match. Yeah, typically it seems ugly and horrible, however I would like it to be able to preserve my head in it.”
The 28-year-old Sabalenka received engaged to long-time associate Georgios Frangulis, a Brazilian businessman in Indian Wells. The couple introduced the engagement on March third. Sabalenka, who sports activities a large glowing engagement ring, stated she wears the ring throughout matches as an announcement—and joked it may be a weapon, too.
“I see slightly little bit of my father in him, and I completely adore it,” Sabalenka of Frangulis. “You recognize, I might inform him, ‘I’m a giant woman, and my hand is massive, and a small ring would look very…small.’
“That’s the entire concept [of a large rock]—particularly when you’re enjoying an evening match, and the lights are hitting it. Then it’s, like, proper of their eyes,” Sabalenka joked.
