Open de France
by Vincent Daheron
World number one Aryna Sabalenka was eliminated on Wednesday in the quarter-finals of the Roland-Garros tennis tournament, overthrown by Russian Diana Shnaider after having served to win the match (3-6, 7-5, 6-0).
The 28-year-old Belarusian, outgoing finalist, lost the last ten games of a match that she had mastered for a long time before losing her nerve.
“No thoughts, no emotions, I just want to stop tennis at this moment,” she reacted less than an hour later at a press conference. “We’ll see…in a few days, I hope I’ll recover mentally.”
She led 6-3, 4-1, double break in her pocket, before collapsing. She was broken a first time, then a second time when she served for a place in the semi-finals, falling within two points of the match.
In a Philippe-Chatrier court open to the four winds, the four-time Grand Slam winner believed she was reliving her lost final last year. The same weather conditions caused the same consequences: the Belarusian increased the number of unforced errors (57) before mentally breaking down.
His screams after his missed balls resonated loudly on center court.
“I feel like I had some really good opportunities in the second set. I wasted them,” she said. “Mentally, I…couldn’t really get over it. That was my biggest mistake.”
“I don’t know when the last time I lost ten games in a row. Mentally, I was in a very, very dark, deep hole.”
Aryna Sabalenka misses a golden opportunity to win her first Roland-Garros in a draw opened by the early eliminations of the title holder Coco Gauff and the four-time winner Iga Swiatek, respectively in the third round and in the round of 16.
DIFFICULT SEASON ON CLAY COURT
Until now, the native of Minsk went through the tournament with authority, without dropping a single set during her first four rounds and spending a maximum of 1h35 on the court, during her victory in the second round against the Frenchwoman Elsa Jacquemot (7-5, 6-2).
In the wake of a remarkable start to the season on hard, her favorite surface, – during which she played the final of the Australian Open and won the WTA 500 in Brisbane as well as the WTA 1000 in Indian Wells “and Miami, the No. 1 seed has seemed to struggle on clay.
Beaten in the quarter-finals in Madrid, she was then eliminated – in the third round in Rome.
This is the first time since Roland-Garros 2024, where she was knocked out by Russian Mirra Andreeva before withdrawing from Wimbledon, that Aryna Sabalenka has missed the final four of a Grand Slam in which she is participating after six consecutive semi-finals.
The double winner of the Australian Open (2023 and 2024) and the US Open (2024 and 2025) will have to wait to add a fifth coronation to her record.
However, she is assured of retaining world number one after the tournament due to the elimination in the second round of her runner-up in the WTA ranking, the Kazakh Elena Rybakina.
For her part, Diana Shnaider, 23rd in the world at 22 years old and a novice at this stage of a major tournament, will play her place in the Roland-Garros final against another surprising left-hander, the Polish Maja Chwalinska.
“Honestly, I’m speechless. Super happy. The conditions were difficult with the wind,” she reacted on the court. “It was my first time playing Aryna, I was super nervous. In the first set, I was trying to adapt to her game, to figure out how to play.”
“She’s world number one, so I was just trying to do my best. I had to fight for every point.”
(Reporting by Vincent Daheron, editing by Sophie Louet)
