Aryna Sabalenka has achieved the highest of highs, as well as a number lows, throughout an inconsistent 2026 season.
Sabalenka earned the Sunshine Double at Indian Wells and the Miami Open, to become just the fifth women in tennis history to achieve the feat.
However, the World No. 1 is yet to win a Grand Slam so far this year and she endured a difficult period during the European clay court swing.
Sabalenka didn’t get past the quarter-final stages of any tournament on the clay, which included a shock defeat to Diana Shnaider in the last eight of Roland Garros.
In an exclusive interview with Tennis365, Sabalenka’s performance coach, Jason Stacy, confirmed that he thinks they got the World No. 1’s schedule wrong.
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Providing an insight into how they concoct Sabalenka’s schedule, Stacy said: “Anton [Dubrov] and I are the ones who discuss what obligations she has, with the agent and the managers. We figure out where she’s at, as far as physically, mentally, emotionally speaking to.
“We have a physio now that travels with us, so they’ve been speaking the physio about what they’re working on, what they might, we look at all the different moving parts, look at outcomes from the previous season, where her energy dipped, as far as be able to manage those things, her emotional and mental, and physical energy.
“I’m very, very much involved in what we’re going to do, not do. Ultimately, you know, she makes that final decision, if she’s going to want to or not. She’ll listen to what we have to say, and, usually she’ll just say: You just tell me’, but it’s a tough decision sometimes.”
But for the clay court swing, Stacy has owned up to his mistake regarding the World No. 1’s schedule.
“Clay, we made a decision, we had to, for a couple reasons, and [it] didn’t work out the way we wanted,” said Stacy, who has overseen Sabalenka’s dominance at the summit of the WTA Tour.
“Maybe the decision we made, as far as scheduling and timing of certain things in our approach, it sounded good, and we all were bought into it, and we thought it might work really well based on last year’s outcome, but, if you just go based on results, maybe it wasn’t the best plan, so we’ll go back and review what worked, what didn’t work, what maybe we could do differently next season to help prepare better.
“That’s a very, very big part of what I do, which again one of those big 3 E’s (energy, emotions, environment) which is managing energy, which is like that’s our number one priority.
Sabalenka only played the Masters events on the clay ahead of Roland Garros, with appearances at the Madrid Open and the Italian Open.
She was knocked out in Madrid by Hailey Baptiste in the quarter-finals, while her tournament was ended in Rome by Sorana Cirstea in the round of 32.
Stacy was speaking exclusively to Tennis365 ahead of the release of his book, The Pressure Code, which is released on September 8th.
Speaking about the books inception, Stacy said: “I just took the core principles that have sort of guided me personally, from when I was younger to all the different people I’ve helped out with, my family, with clients, with Aryna [Sabalenka].”
The post Aryna Sabalenka’s coach admits the mistake they’ve made this season – ‘It didn’t work out’ appeared first on Tennis365.
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