“You guys are, like, a joke. Parties, fun… like, why would you even say that? Why would you even think about that? What kind of question is that?”
Aryna Sabalenka’s reply landed in a hushed interview room on Wednesday, minutes after she had needed just 54 minutes to hand qualifier Polina Iatcenko a 6-1, 6-1 defeat in the second round.
The question that set her off referenced her recent social media activity, where she had posted from brand appearances in the run-up to Flushing Meadows. Sabalenka rejected the framing outright.
“Just because I posted, like, some activities with brands, and you think that I’ve been partying, not training?”
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Two press conferences, same line of questioning
It was the second consecutive post-match session in which Sabalenka had faced questions about her preparation. After her first-round win over Camila Osorio on Monday, she had already tried to shut the topic down.
“Why do you think the week before I wasn’t focused on tennis?” she said then, adding that her off-court commitments were carefully chosen. “It’s like my hobby outside of tennis. The whole schedule we plan is all around tennis.”
By Wednesday, patience had gone. The world number one closed the exchange with a curt line she made sure the room heard.
“Oh yeah, I wasn’t serious before that. Next question. Think before you say stuff.”
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Chasing a piece of Serena’s history
The temper is not detached from what is at stake. Sabalenka arrived in New York as the two-time defending champion, and her win over Iatcenko extended her US Open winning streak to 15 matches. A third straight title in Queens would put her alongside Serena Williams, who won three US Opens in a row from 2012 to 2014, the last woman to do it.
On the court itself, the second-round performance was as clean as the numbers suggest. Sabalenka struck 24 winners to Iatcenko’s three and dropped only two games on the way to reaching the third round.
Rakhimova next, then the seeds
The path does not sharpen just yet. Sabalenka meets Kamilla Rakhimova of Uzbekistan on Friday, an opponent she has beaten in all three of their previous meetings. Only from the fourth round onward do the seeded contenders begin to stack up in her quarter of the draw.
Sabalenka herself pointed to the mental side of her game as the reason the level has returned in New York.
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“I can definitely say that mentally I’m way stronger than I was in the middle of the season.”
Her third-round match against Rakhimova is scheduled for Friday in New York.
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