Aryna Sabalenka has proclaimed that she feels \u2018better than ever\u2019 on clay courts, ahead of her French Open campaign.<\/p>\n
The world No 1 has enjoyed a successful clay-court season, \u00a0with a WTA 1000 victory in Madrid and a final at the Stuttgart event (which she lost to Jelena Ostapenko).<\/p>\n
At the Belarusian\u2019s last event \u2013 the Italian Open \u2013 Sabalenka<\/a> was knocked out in the quarter-final stage by Zheng Qinwen, 6-4, 6-3.<\/p>\n \u201cI think throughout the years I improved a lot, and today I feel physically, mentally, and I think my game is pretty much ready to play on clay,\u201d stated Sabalenka, during her pre-tournament French Open<\/a> press conference.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I definitely feel stronger than ever.<\/p>\n Honestly, preparation-wise, there is no difference. Mentally, and like in my head, there is no difference [in being ranked No 1].<\/p>\n \u201cIt honestly doesn\u2019t matter your ranking when you arrive in the big tournaments, as we see in the past. There is so many crazy upsets happening.<\/p>\n \u201cSo ranking doesn\u2019t really matter anymore. I\u2019m just trying to focus on my game, and nowadays I know I can do well on clay, so arriving here I feel really strong and super excited, and hopefully this is going to be the year when I\u2019m really going to be proud of myself on the clay court.\u201d<\/p>\n Sabalenka may have had sensational results at the hard court Grand Slams \u2013 having won two Australian Opens and one US Open \u2013 she is yet to reach a final in Paris, with her best result coming in 2023, where she reached the last four.<\/p>\n However, despite the lack of a tournament victory, she has her eyes firmly on the Suzanne-Lenglen trophy.<\/p>\n \u201cI think at this point of my career it\u2019s all about winning the titles, the big trophies, and I think you have to set up really huge goals for yourself,\u201d Sabalenka reaffirmed.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe sometimes really crazy goals. I\u2019m more into, winning than just reaching the finals, because losing in the final sucks, I hate it, so that\u2019s not the goal for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Sabalenka will open against Kamilla Rakhimova, with her Rome-conqueror \u2013 Zheng Qinwen \u2013 lurking in her quarter as the eighth seed.<\/p>\n Former world No 4 Caroline Garcia announces that 2025 will mark her final French Open appearance<\/a><\/p>\n Emma Raducanu given verdict on her \u2018ceiling\u2019 by former world No 1 ahead of French Open<\/a><\/p>\n The world No 1 leads her nearest rival \u2013 Coco Gauff \u2013 by nearly 4000 ranking points, and, despite the gap, Sabalenka acknowledged that she actively enjoys being \u2018chased\u2019 by her competitors.<\/p>\n \u201cI just love it so much, because just for me personally, knowing that there is someone chasing me, or I have a target on my back right now, I love it,\u201d the Belarusian stated.<\/p>\n \u201cI take it as a challenge. Every time I go out there, I feel like, okay, let\u2019s go. Let\u2019s see who is ready for the pressure moments. I take it like that, and it\u2019s actually helping me to stay in the moment and to fight, no matter what, on the court.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Aryna Sabalenka sends strong signal to French Open competitors: \u201cI feel stronger than ever\u201d<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Aryna Sabalenka has proclaimed that she feels \u2018better than ever\u2019 on clay courts, ahead of her French Open campaign. The world No 1 has enjoyed a successful clay-court season, \u00a0with a WTA 1000 victory in Madrid and a final at the Stuttgart event (which she lost to Jelena Ostapenko). At the Belarusian\u2019s last event \u2013 […]<\/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-498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498","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=498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Latest WTA News<\/h3>\n