World No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka was left furious with herself after a one-sided defeat to Mirra Andreeva at the WTA Finals. Sabalenka led 4-1 in their second group stage match on Wednesday before losing the last 11 games in a row, as Andreeva claimed a 6-4 6-0 victory. The teenager won 45 of the last 55 points as Sabalenka fell apart on court.
Self-critical reaction
Asked what she would tell herself if she were her own coach, the four-time Grand Slam champion jokingly replied: “What a f***ing loser.” After laughing it off, she reflected on her next match in the round-robin stage.
“Right now for the next matches? Just keep going, you’re doing okay. If things didn’t go well today, it doesn’t mean that tomorrow it’s going to be the same, and I’m a hard worker, and I know that I can push through whatever,” she said.
Qualification hopes still alive
Sabalenka still has a chance to reach the semi-finals, having won her opening match against Karolina Muchova two days earlier. She needs a strong result against Elina Svitolina on Friday to progress to the last four.
After surrendering her early lead and failing to win a game from 4-1 up, Sabalenka conceded Andreeva was too good. “She definitely played great tennis. For now, what can I say? Bravo,” she said. “Well, the good thing is that I still have a chance to qualify. I’ll need some time to recover after. I don’t even know how many games in a row I lost.”
Andreeva advances to semi-finals
Andreeva, 19, is already into the semi-finals after impressing on her singles debut at the WTA Finals. She also beat Svitolina 6-4 6-0 earlier this week. This was her first meeting with Sabalenka since winning the 2025 Indian Wells final.
“I was angry. I was not very happy with how things went. Obviously she played well. I mean, she hit a lot of winners. I was not happy with how I lost my serve with the double fault on break point. I was just feeling that anger building up inside of me,” Andreeva said after going down an early break. “But it was a good thing that I was serving, because I kind of was able to turn that anger into trying to serve faster. To let it out with serving. And then after, I felt better and I was able to play better on the return and, just like that, things went my way.”
