Rick Macci, a renowned former coach of Serena and Venus Williams, has told Tennis365 why he has concerns about Aryna Sabalenka\u2019s mentality as the Belarusian chases the Wimbledon title.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka is seeking her maiden Wimbledon<\/a> crown at the 2026 edition of the historic grass-court Grand Slam tournament in London.<\/p>\n The world No 1\u2019s best result at the All England Club is reaching the semi-finals, which she achieved in her three previous appearances in 2025, 2023 and 2021 (Sabalenka missed Wimbledon in 2024 and 2022).<\/p>\n Sabalenka<\/a> has spent 87 consecutive weeks as the world No 1 since overtaking Iga Swiatek in October 2024, and she has been the dominant player on the WTA Tour in this period.<\/p>\n The 28-year-old is a four-time Grand Slam champion, and she has not fallen before the quarter-finals in her last 14 appearances at majors.<\/p>\n Despite this, Sabalenka has not converted her outstanding consistency into as many Grand Slam titles as some feel she could, and perhaps should, have won.<\/p>\n Sabalenka has won just one of the last six majors since the start of 2025, losing in three finals.<\/p>\n Aryna Sabalenka gives honest verdict on Naomi Osaka\u2019s controversial Wimbledon outfits<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Iga Swiatek sends clear message to critics of her psychologist Daria Abramowicz<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n Last month, Sabalenka collapsed to a shock quarter-final loss to Diana Shnaider at Roland Garros after leading 6-3, 4-1 with a double break in the second set. She lost the last 10 games \u2014 and 12 of the last 13 games \u2014 as Shnaider won the third set 6-0.<\/p>\n The Belarusian then lost a final set 6-0 again in her semi-final defeat to Jessica Pegula at the Berlin Open, which was her only grass-court event before Wimbledon.<\/p>\n Speaking exclusively to Tennis365, Macci described the one-sided scorelines in Sabalenka\u2019s two most recent losses as a \u201cred flag.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLook what\u2019s going on with Sabalenka \u2014 the last two losses, she got a donut (6-0) in the third set\u2026 What is that? What is that? That\u2019s a bit of a red flag,\u201d said the American coach.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was stellar in tiebreaks, her record in tiebreakers was unreal. But it seems like, on the biggest stage, a few things start to bother her.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd there\u2019s a fine line between winning and losing, especially on the women\u2019s tour. Let\u2019s just hope that she figures it out.<\/p>\n \u201cBut to me, it\u2019s a little bit of a red flag to not have enough pride to even scrape out a game against two players where you\u2019re definitely the better player on paper.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on [with Sabalenka] off the court, but if you\u2019re not there every single point\u2026 the margins are so thin \u2014 they\u2019re just razor thin \u2014 and anybody can beat anybody anytime, anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked who he is backing to win the women\u2019s singles title at Wimbledon, Macci picked world No 2 Elena Rybakina over Sabalenka.<\/p>\n \u201cI was going to go with Sabalenka a few weeks ago (laughs), until I\u2019m seeing what\u2019s going on,\u201d said Macci.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going to go with [Elena] Rybakina.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Did Serena Williams deserve Wimbledon wildcard? Should she have been fined for media snub?<\/a> The post Aryna Sabalenka \u2018red flag\u2019 could derail her Wimbledon title bid, says Serena Williams\u2019 ex-coach<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rick Macci, a renowned former coach of Serena and Venus Williams, has told Tennis365 why he has concerns about Aryna Sabalenka\u2019s mentality as the Belarusian chases the Wimbledon title. Sabalenka is seeking her maiden Wimbledon crown at the 2026 edition of the historic grass-court Grand Slam tournament in London. The world No 1\u2019s best result […]<\/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-2434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2434","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=2434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2434\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Wimbledon News<\/h2>\n
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