Aryna Sabalenka makes brutally honest admission about the time she considered retirement from tennis

Aryna Sabalenka recently revealed that she was about to hang up her racquet two years ago due to her on-court struggles. The World No. 1 also spoke about her admiration for the game, which allowed her to stick it out before she achieved her breakthrough in 2023.

While Sabalenka had already won a few big titles on the WTA Tour by the time the 2022 season rolled in, she was still relatively inexperienced at going deep at the Grand Slam tournaments. Back then, the Belarusian had also become notorious for her double faults. She committed a whopping 428 double faults in 2022.

Eventually, Aryna Sabalenka ironed out the kinks from her playing style and announced herself at the head of the table by winning her first Grand Slam tournament at the 2023 Australian Open. She has since recorded two more Major triumphs and ended the 2024 season as the top-ranked WTA player.

That said, the 26-year-old still remembers the troubles of her 2022 season, where she even considered retirement at one point. Speaking to Harper's Bazaar, she asserted that a display of resilience had become a must for her and that without it, she may have called curtains on her career.

"A time that comes to mind where I had to show my resilience and where I was really close to saying, 'Okay, I’m done', was two or three years ago when I was double-faulting non-stop and everything seemed to be going wrong. I was thinking to myself, 'Okay, it’s time for me to give up and to quit … it’s time for me to retire,'" Aryna Sabalenka told Harper's Bazaar.

The two-time Australian Open champion, however, did concede in the same breath that her love for tennis and the life attached to it gave her enough courage to turn her fortunes around.

"But then I realised I have so much love for the sport and there are so many things behind the scenes that I just couldn’t give up," she added. "I had to stay strong and try one more time, try something else to figure out my problem, and I think that was the turning point for me in my career."

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Aryna Sabalenka: "I’ve had to make a lot of sacrifices to get where I am"

Aryna Sabalenka poses with the Brisbane trophy

Aryna Sabalenka also lost her father, Sergey, in 2019. He introduced his daughter to tennis in her early years. In that context, the World No. 1 has surely endured a lot.

During her interaction with Harper's Bazaar, which featured her on their January 2025 cover for Australia and New Zealand, she maintained that rising to the top-most rungs of women's tennis required a lot of sacrifices and hard work.

"It took me a lot to get where I am right now, and I’ve had to make a lot of sacrifices," Aryna Sabalenka told Harper's Bazaar. "It has definitely taken a lot of hard work, and it’s a long process. It’s not something that happens just by one click.

Sabalenka is the top seed and two-time defending champion at this year's Australian Open. She comes into the Happy Slam with ideal preparation, having won her 18th WTA Tour title at the Brisbane International last week.