Aryna Sabalenka suffered a third-round defeat at the Italian Open, marking her second early exit in as many tournaments and raising fresh injury concerns ahead of the French Open.<\/p>\n
The Belarusian appeared firmly in control against Sorana Cirstea after racing to a 6-2, 2-0 lead, but the momentum quickly shifted as the experienced Romanian battled back to take the second set 7-5.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka is renowned for her fighting spirit and refusal to lose, often finding ways to escape difficult early-round encounters even when far from her best level. However, this time the world No 1 was unable to recover after the match turned against her.<\/p>\n
Once down an early break in the deciding set, Sabalenka took a medical timeout for a lower back issue and appeared to be in considerable discomfort while receiving treatment from the physio at courtside.<\/p>\n
Her movement noticeably declined during the closing stages, with the Belarusian struggling to generate the same power and consistency from the baseline.<\/p>\n
Although Cirstea was unable to serve out the contest at 5-4 in the final set, she regrouped impressively and eventually sealed a dramatic 2-6, 7-5, 7-5 victory to record one of the biggest wins of her career.<\/p>\n
After a dominant opening set behind serve, which is one of her greatest weapons, Sabalenka suffered a significant drop in effectiveness on her first delivery. She won just 39 per cent of first-serve points in the second set compared to 68 per cent in the opener.<\/p>\n
She finished the match having won 59 per cent of first-serve points overall \u2013 her lowest figure of the season.<\/p>\n
At the Madrid Open, Sabalenka squandered six match points against Hailey Baptiste in the quarter-finals \u2013 a result that raised fresh questions over her status as the clear favourite heading into the French Open.<\/p>\n
Prior to the Italian Open, the Belarusian hadn\u2019t lost in the third round round \u2013 or before \u2013 since the Dubai Championships in February 2025.<\/p>\n
Novak Djokovic under injury cloud ahead of French Open after latest cryptic comments<\/a><\/p>\n Commentators call out \u2018unhappy\u2019 Coco Gauff\u2019s body language during tense Italian Open comeback<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI feel like I didn\u2019t play well from the beginning till the end,\u201d analysed Sabalenka.<\/p>\n \u201cI started really well, but then I kind of dropped the level. Felt like my body was limiting me from performing on the highest level. She stepped in and played incredible tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019d say that probably it\u2019s like my lower back, connected to the hip, which kind of like limiting me from the full rotation. I guess we just going to have some days off. We\u2019re going to spend it on recovery. That\u2019s the plan I believe for now.\u201d<\/p>\n The Romanian had never previously won a set in any of her six meetings against world No 1 players, including a 6-3, 6-3 defeat to Sabalenka earlier this season.<\/p>\n She is also the fifth-oldest player to defeat a WTA No 1 after Serena Williams (37), Venus Williams (36), Martina Navratilova (36), and Billie Jean King (36).<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve very, very happy,\u201d Cirstea exclaimed during her on-court interview after the victory.<\/p>\n \u201cAryna is an amazing player, she doesn\u2019t need an introduction, she\u2019s No 1 in the world.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very happy with the win and, again, I\u2019m working really, really hard so it\u2019s nice to have the hard work pay off.\u201d<\/p>\n Cirstea is due to retire from professional tennis at the end of the season after spending two decades on tour, with career highlights including three singles titles and six doubles titles.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe if I win the tournament, I promise I\u2019ll think about it,\u201d joked Cirstea after being asked if she would reverse her decision to retire at the end of the season.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s amazing what I feel in Rome, it\u2019s why I still play, for these emotions, for this support, for the people, and thank you again for making me feel so welcome here in Rome.\u201d<\/p>\n Cirstea will next face 13th seed Linda Noskova in the fourth round, a stage she also reached in 2024 before being defeated by American Madison Keys.<\/p>\n The post Aryna Sabalenka suffers another early loss amid physical issue as French Open door widens for rivals<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Aryna Sabalenka suffered a third-round defeat at the Italian Open, marking her second early exit in as many tournaments and raising fresh injury concerns ahead of the French Open. The Belarusian appeared firmly in control against Sorana Cirstea after racing to a 6-2, 2-0 lead, but the momentum quickly shifted as the experienced Romanian battled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}