Patrick McEnroe believes alarm bells should be ringing for Aryna Sabalenka ahead of Wimbledon following some \u201cvery shocking\u201d results recently.<\/p>\n
World No 1 Sabalenka<\/a> has dominated women\u2019s tennis the past two years and starts just about every Grand Slam as the favourite, but she only won the US Open last year while so far this year she finished runner-up to Elena Rybakina at the Australian Open<\/a> and lost in the quarter-final at Roland Garros.<\/p>\n The Belarusian appeared to be cruising against Diana Shnaider at the French Open as she won the opening set, but then slumped to a 6-3, 5-7, 0-6 defeat<\/a> in windy conditions in Paris.<\/p>\n After a short break, she made her return at the grass-court Berlin Open and, after needing three sets to beat teenager Nikola Bartunkova in the quarter-final, she lost 4-6, 7-6 (7-4), 0-6 against Jessica Pegula<\/a> in the next round.<\/p>\n ESPN analyst McEnroe says he is concerned about the manner in which Sabalenka has lost her recent matches, as he explained why she could struggle to win the title at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n WTA Wimbledon: Points being dropped by Sabalenka, Rybakina, Swiatek, Gauff, Raducanu, Eala<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Iga Swiatek snubbed as favourite ahead of Wimbledon title defence<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a huge red flag for Sabalenka. She\u2019s lost the last two matches 6-Love in the third. I find that very shocking, especially for a player with her kind of firepower,\u201d he said during an ESPN press conference.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Zverev had a great comment about if someone asked me, you got a great serve, you got a great return, you hit the ball hard, how come you haven\u2019t done well at Wimbledon. He just kind of laughed and said, \u2018That has nothing to do with it. It\u2019s all about movement, all about movement, and being comfortable on the grass.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI think Sabalenka has done better over the years. I would say she\u2019s a slightly better mover comparably to Zverev on the men\u2019s side. That\u2019s why guys like [John] Isner and the big guys, he had the one run when he made the semis, but look at Isner, how come the guy can\u2019t win Wimbledon? It\u2019s all about quick movement, the athleticism.\u201d<\/p>\n Sabalenka reached the semi-final at the All England Club last year before she was stunned by Amanda Anisimova.<\/p>\n 2022 Wimbledon winner Rybakina is McEnroe\u2019s player to beat<\/a> as he described her game as \u201cthe purest\u201d on grass.<\/p>\n The American added: \u201cI think Rybakina is a favourite because of the way she hits the ball. I think she\u2019s a little more comfortable with her movement, even though she\u2019s tall, like Sabalenka. I think she feels more comfortable moving. I think she\u2019s got the purest grass court game of anyone out there on the women\u2019s side.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Aryna Sabalenka sent Wimbledon warning after \u2018huge red flag\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Patrick McEnroe believes alarm bells should be ringing for Aryna Sabalenka ahead of Wimbledon following some \u201cvery shocking\u201d results recently. World No 1 Sabalenka has dominated women\u2019s tennis the past two years and starts just about every Grand Slam as the favourite, but she only won the US Open last year while so far this […]<\/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-2384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2384","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=2384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Wimbledon News<\/h2>\n