Aryna Sabalenka gets real about keeping emotional moments of her life with late father & grandfather away from social media

Aryna Sabalenka opened up about embracing her emotional moments alone, away from social media. She spoke about spending alone time after her father and grandfather passed away.

After her Australian Open campaign, which ended on January 25, Sabalenka was featured on the cover of Flaunt magazine. She donned some fashionable attires from luxurious brands for the photo shoot and also had a conversation with the magazine.

In the interview, Sabalenka spoke about various aspects of her life, including her time after her father and grandfather passed away. She said she prefers to keep some aspects of her personal life away from social media.

Sabalenka lost her father, Sergey Sabalenka, in 2019 due to meningitis. He was one of the biggest supporters of her tennis career. Reflecting on the alone time she spent after he passed away, she said:

“I’m really open. But I have to say, when I lost my dad, from time to time, I would go to the church and put a candle for his memory and the memory of my grandfather. It’s something you never show on social media. I’m not gonna be the one in the church filming,” Sabalenka said.

Ahead of this feature in Flaunt magazine, the Belarusian competed in the Australian Open, where she reached the finals after besting several top-notch athletes, such as Jessica Bouzas, Mirra Andreeva, Paula Badosa, and others. However, in the last round, she squared off against Madison Keys, where the latter dominated the match, 6-3, 2-6, 7-5, bagging the tournament's trophy.

Aryna Sabalenka opened up about how she overcame her father's and her ex-boyfriend's death

In an interview with the Guardian, Aryna Sabalenka once opened up about dealing with the deaths of both her father and ex-boyfriend, Konstantin Koltsov's death. The latter passed away in March, leading Sabalenka to go through a tragic time.

In the conversation, Sabalenka opened up about the way she handled both incidents by engaging more in tennis.

"Once, I lost my father and tennis helped me to go through that tough loss. So at that moment [of Koltsov’s death] I thought I had to just keep going, keep playing, keep doing my thing to separate my personal life from my career life," Sablaenka said.

However, Sabalenka added that now she thinks that taking a break from tennis would have been a better option during that time.

"Probably, looking back right now, I would say that a better decision would have been to step back, reset and recharge, and start everything over again. But I did what I did. At the end I paid for my decision, but I’m really glad that I have tennis in my life and it’s really helped me go through whatever and get stronger."

Aryna Sabalenka commenced her 2025 season by winning the title of the Brisbane International tournament. She trounced Polina Kudermetova to nab the title on January 5, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.