Aryna Sabalenka was born in 1998, the Year of the Tiger. 18 years to that period, she now symbolizes with a tiger tattoo on her arm. Her on-court attitude reflects that same fierce spirit. Despite tragically losing her ex-partner, Konstantin Koltsov, Aryna Sabalenka demonstrated remarkable strength and resilience, winning two major titles: the Australian Open and the US Open and a year-end ranking. Owing to this, the tennis journalist Jon Wertheim explained why Saba should be on the radar.

The World No.1 chose to compete in the Miami Open just days after hearing the news. She reached the second round, but lost to Anhelina Kalinina of Ukraine. In a rare moment of frustration, she smashed her racket three times and canceled all her press conferences. Looking back, Sabalenka admitted that she struggled emotionally and health-wise, but felt she needed to continue playing. And she did exactly that!

In August, she told The Guardian, “Once, I lost my father and tennis helped me to go through that tough loss. So at that moment [of Koltsov’s death], I thought I had to just keep going, keep playing, keep doing my thing to separate my personal life from my career life. But at the end, I would say I was struggling a lot health-wise because I didn’t stop. It was really emotional and really stressful, and kind of damaged my mental health at that point.” She felt similar after losing her ex-partner, whose death was described as “an apparent suicide” by Miami-Dade police. The way she coped up has earned the “grace” tag.

John Wertheim, in this week’s conversation in ‘Served‘ podcast with Andy Roddick, said, “This was just such a winning year for her in so many ways. There was a personal tragedy mixed in there that she handled with grace and certainly didn’t seem to have any adverse impact on her tennis.”

Wertheim was so impressed that he further said, “Someone was asking me. I said, if you could do a story now on one tennis player for 60 minutes, just introduce him to the world. We’re not talking about backhands and forehands. We’re just saying, hey, this is someone worthy of being on your radar. Who would it be? And that was she was the first answer I came up with.”

But that’s not all that caught the tennis insider’s eye. Sabalenka’s unique approach to the sport is also something he thinks is worth mentioning.

How does Aryna Sabalenka balance fierce competition with a free spirit?

In the same podcast, Wertheim talked about Aryna Sabalenka’s vibrant personality, too. He said, ” And this is such a different sort of presentation from what we’re used to as a top player. This is someone whose tennis is all business. Her record speaks for itself. She won half the majors that were held. The fact that she does it with this generosity of spirit to me is such a change. She lacks inhibition. She knows who she is. There’s a lot of dancing, there’s smiles, there’s partying. I think that there’s something really instructive here, which is, you know what? You can take your work seriously, but don’t take yourself seriously.”

The 26-year-old is often seen enjoying herself on and off the court. She posted a video on TikTok of her team dancing with the Australian Open trophy, as she became the first woman to defend her title there since Victoria Azarenka in 2013. Talking about her celebration she said, “I had just a little drink, a little sweet, we’ve been dancing, having fun, that’s how we celebrate.”

During the French Open as well, the three time Grand Slam winner was seen grooving to the party song ‘Fireball’ by Pitbull with the ball kids.

Ahead of the same tournament she talked about her mindset and said, “First times when I was coming here, I was so tight, I was so intense because it’s a Grand Slam, and with the years you realize this is just another tournament and you have to have fun. You have to be positive, because it’s enough tension on court. If you’re gonna bring this tension off court, it’s just too much. So for me, it’s the better way to kind of like loosen up and to keep it, I don’t know, mentally good, it’s just to have fun, of course.”

Aryna Sabalenka’s 2024 season showed her strength on and off the court. She will be seen next at the Brisbane International on 29th December as she prepares to defend her title at the Australian Open.