Stuttering Aryna Sabalenka seeks to set down marker at Roland Garros

PARIS – Aryna Sabalenka looked unbeatable when the clay-court season got underway last month, but now as the world No. 1 arrives in Paris for her latest tilt at winning Roland Garros, her dominance of the women’s game has started to show cracks.

The four-time Grand Slam champion still holds more than 1,000 ranking points on her closest challengers and foremost on her mind over the next fortnight will be going one better than her runner-up finish last year in the French capital, when she lost in three sets to Coco Gauff.

However, her stranglehold over her competitors is suddenly a lot less dominant.

When Sabalenka swept to the Sunshine Double at the WTA 1000 hardcourt events in Indian Wells and Miami in March, she had then won three of the four tournaments she had played in this season – the only blight on that record being a three-set defeat to Elena Rybakina in the Australian Open final.

And as she jetted into Madrid for the start of the European clay swing on a 15-match winning streak, it had seemed little would stand in her way to claiming a fourth career title at the Caja Magica.

But a quarter-final exit at the hands of Hailey Baptiste put paid to the Belarusian’s ambitions in Spain, before she followed that up by crashing out of the Italian Open against a resurgent Sorana Cirstea in the third round, after which she said she felt like “my body was limiting me from performing on the highest level”.

“I guess we never lose; we only learn, so it’s OK,” Sabalenka mused after exiting a 1000 tournament at the round-of-32 stage for the first time since February 2025.

With the 28-year-old top seed now looking uncertain on the clay, the draw again appears to be wide open.

Rybakina, who beat Sabalenka in last season’s WTA Finals decider and then in Melbourne in January to claim her second major title, will be one of the main contenders.

The world No. 2 last month won indoor on the clay in Stuttgart but similarly had disappointing runs in Madrid and Rome.

Iga Swiatek, the erstwhile ‘Queen of clay’, has of late shown glimpses of the form that took her to world No. 1 and four Roland Garros titles in the early 2020s.

Since her last triumph in Paris two years ago, the 24-year-old has struggled to find consistency but will be hoping her new collaboration with Rafael Nadal’s former coach Francisco Roig can help her refind her best tennis on her favourite surface.

Defending champion Gauff will certainly not cede her title lightly and the world No. 4 enters the fray on the back of a strong run in Rome, which ended in defeat at the final hurdle to the in-form Elina Svitolina. AFP