Aryna Sabalenka's own fans have turned on her and urged her to focus on her tennis after her string of bikini snaps.
Recent Slump and Defeat
The world No.1 has found herself in a slump of late, which was compounded by a shock defeat to Czech Sara Bejlek in the fourth round at the Cincinnati Open. The 28-year-old was 5-1 up in a first-set tiebreak and 4-1 in front in the second leg before losing 7-6 (9-7) and 6-4.
Sabalenka suffered frustrating exits in the quarter-final and round of 16 at the French Open and Wimbledon, respectively, in recent months and failed to make it past the third round at the Canadian Open in Montreal earlier this month.
Fan Backlash Over Social Media Content
Her loss of form has angered her fans as it coincides with her Instagram feed being filled with bikini snaps in recent weeks. Recent uploads have also come with her showing off her summer holiday in Greece as well as content for sponsors Gucci and jewellery brand Material Good.
Less than a week ago, Sabalenka's latest post saw her wearing a black swimsuit and posing by hanging onto the bottom of a basketball hoop net before her photoshoot with TIME magazine.
As well as 5.5million followers on Instagram, Sabalenka has 1.8m followers on TikTok, where she regularly gets involved with trends and dance videos. The Belarusian also has a YouTube page where she uploads longer form videos.
But patience is running thin with her tennis fans who have had enough of her social media content at the same time she is struggling for form on the court.
One comment under a recent post slammed: "Please more tennis and less phone." A second vented: "Too many distractions with the jewellery and all that... focus on sport or give it up."
Another fumed: "Less bikinis n more training." And a fourth trolled: "Yooooo, just tell us if you don't wanna do this tennis thing now, so we can stop watching."
Ranking and Future Outlook
Sabalenka remains the world No.1 but Elena Rybakina, who beat her in Melbourne this year, is just 345 points behind after claiming to world No.2.
Sabalenka has admitted that she has a target on her back because of her ranking: "You can look at this like you're defending something, but to be honest, you have the target on your back, everyone wants to beat you, but I feel it's the same if you're No. 1, No. 2, No. 10. It doesn't really matter what's the ranking anyway when you go out there on the court, everyone wants to beat you.
"I love having the target on my back. I like to see the young generation looking up to me and get inspired by me, but I also feel they will get inspired if I drop in the ranking a little bit. Hopefully it will never happen. As long as I focus on developing myself as a player and a person, ranking doesn't really matter."
