Wimbledon finalist Sabine Lisicki has spoken to Tennis365 about Aryna Sabalenka after the Belarusian\u2019s challenging recent run continued with a fourth round exit at Wimbledon 2026.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka, who was aiming to win her maiden Wimbledon title and fifth Grand Slam overall, was beaten 6-2, 7-6(2) by 14th seed Naomi Osaka in the last 16 at the All England Club.<\/p>\n
Prior to Wimbledon, Sabalenka had reached the quarter-finals or better at 14 consecutive Grand Slam events \u2014 a run that began at the 2022 US Open.<\/p>\n
The world No 1\u2019s defeat to Osaka came after she lost the final set 6-0 in matches at both of her previous two tournaments.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old fell 4-6, 7-6(4), 0-6 to Jessica Pegula in the Berlin Open semi-finals following a shock 6-3, 5-7, 0-6 loss to Diana Shnaider in the Roland Garros quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
In her defeat to Shnaider, Sabalenka collapsed after she was up a double break at 4-1 in the second set.<\/p>\n
While Sabalenka<\/a> has occupied top spot in the WTA Rankings since October 2024 and been by far the most consistent player in women\u2019s tennis during this period, she has won just one of the last seven majors since the start of 2025.<\/a><\/p>\n Exclusive: Sabine Lisicki makes honest confession about her 2013 Wimbledon final loss<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n WTA Rankings: Sabalenka survives again at No 1, Swiatek -5, Muchova, Noskova, Eala crack new highs<\/a><\/strong><\/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 Speaking exclusively to Tennis365, Lisicki assessed that it took Sabalenka \u201ca while\u201d to recover from her French Open exit and discussed her Wimbledon<\/a> campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s been playing amazingly, and she\u2019s number one for a reason,\u201d said the former world No 12, who was a runner-up at Wimbledon in 2013.<\/p>\n \u201cWe all saw what happened at the French Open, and that\u2019s the tricky part \u2014 when you see a draw opening up so much that the player has the feeling, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s the title to grab for me now\u2019, that also adds a lot of pressure.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, I think we saw that pressure on Sabalenka at the French Open, that she crumbled there. I feel like it took a while for her to recover from it.<\/p>\n \u201cI saw her playing in Berlin, and she was also struggling there, so I actually thought she started really well here [at Wimbledon], she played very good.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd it\u2019s a close match against Naomi. So close, just a few points here and there. So, I don\u2019t think this match \u2014 it could have been a final, to be for real \u2014 sometimes the draw just plays out that way, and it is an earlier matchup, because Naomi isn\u2019t seeded high enough yet.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, this tournament, I actually think she played pretty good, so I wouldn\u2019t say \u2014 yes, it was an earlier exit; not expected for her \u2014 but seeing the draw, I don\u2019t think it was a loss that shouldn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Exclusive: Alex Eala gets glowing \u2018great potential\u2019 verdict from Caroline Wozniacki after Wimbledon run<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Aryna Sabalenka\u2019s struggles met with alternative view by ex-Wimbledon finalist<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wimbledon finalist Sabine Lisicki has spoken to Tennis365 about Aryna Sabalenka after the Belarusian\u2019s challenging recent run continued with a fourth round exit at Wimbledon 2026. Sabalenka, who was aiming to win her maiden Wimbledon title and fifth Grand Slam overall, was beaten 6-2, 7-6(2) by 14th seed Naomi Osaka in the last 16 at […]<\/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-2480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2480","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=2480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}WTA Tour News<\/h2>\n