WTA Adelaide: Aryna Sabalenka suffers from Yips “- and hits 18 double faults
Aryna Sabalenka lost her first game of the year at the WTA 500 tournament in Adelaide in straight sets. Even bigger worries than the defeat are likely to cause the world number two, their massive problems with the serve.
by Nikolaus Fink
last edit: Jan 06, 2022, 02:03 pm
A tight first set, a clear second - this is how Aryna Sabalenka's 6: 7 (6) and 1: 6 defeat to Kaja Juvan in the second round of the WTA 500 tournament in Adelaide could be summed up quickly. Supposedly. Because if you take a closer look, a much bigger problem is hidden behind the opening failure of the 23-year-old who was initially equipped with a bye: Yips.
Yips is understood to mean sudden muscle twitching, Alexander Zverev and Sara Errani also had to struggle with this phenomenon - and now Sabalenka has apparently also got it. In the match against Juvan, the Belarusian made 18 - sometimes hair-raising - double faults.
While the game was largely unspectacular until the tie-break, Sabalenka made four double errors in the short decision. It was not significantly better in the second round when the second in the world ranked number two scattered eleven "doubles" in just four service games.
However, the problems are not entirely new for Sabalenka: After her most recent appearance in Adelaide, she served 60 double errors in her last four matches according to the official WTA - and that in only 52 service games (including tie breaks). The 23-year-old still has around one and a half weeks to get the problems under control in time for the start of the Australian Open on January 17th.