Aryna Sabalenka revealed that she almost quit tennis in 2022 after the invasion of Ukraine. In part two of Netflix’s tennis series Break Point – which drops next week – the Belarusian world No 2 is seen in tears as she struggles with her country’s part in the war. And Sabalenka’s coach claims that anyone mentioning the war faces the threat of dying in jail.
Sabalenka recently hit headlines at the French Open as she was confronted over her stance on the Ukraine war and her past links to President Lukashenko. The 25-year-old condemned the war and his actions but skipped two of her press conferences after the exchanges with one Ukrainian journalist left her feeling “unsafe”.
But a new episode of Netflix’s tennis documentary series shows that Sabalenka has been struggling with the war since it started last February. The Australian Open champion can be seen in tears as she tells her team she wants to stop playing and also condemns the conflict in scenes shot last year.
“I’m from Belarus so I felt really bad. It’s tough. It’s really tough what they’re dealing with. If I could have any control of it, then of course, I would do everything I can to stop everything,” Sabaleka told the camera.
“Everyone started talking about, ‘You have to ban all the players from Russia and Belarus’ and I thought that everyone is looking weird to me, you know? I felt like everyone hates me because of my country.”
The world No 2’s coach Anton Dubrov – who is also from Belarus – explained the repercussions of even addressing the situation. He said: “You start to feel really guilty because your country is part of this.
“But also you have to be really careful because in our country you cannot say a word about what is going on. Or if you just say the word ‘war’. Like, ‘Okay, you will die in jail.’ So it’s very difficult. It was kind of this pressure around, like, ‘You have to talk’ but also there is no right words for you.”
And Dubrov admitted that Sabalenka’s dip in form last year was because of her response to the ongoing conflict. “If you’re talking about the tennis perspective, she struggled a lot. But I think tennis is not really important right now,” he added.
During one occasion at the French Open, Sabaleka cries while reading death threats on her phone after losing in the third round. “After the match, I opened Instagram and then the first thing that popped up is like, ‘You f***ing b***h, you’re gonna die’ or like, ‘You better die and I wish all your family will die with cancer’ and blah blah blah,” she explained.
“And you see these messages and I cannot handle it anymore. This is way too much.” In another scene, Sabalenka sobs as she speaks to her team in Russian and tells them she wants to stop tennis.
“Don’t tell me not to worry. Now everyone is watching me f***inglosing it. I just don’t want to play tennis anymore. End of. It’s all telling me I should quit,” she told them. Sabalenka – whose father passed away in 2019 aged just 44 – said that he was the reason she didn’t give up.
The pair had dreamed that she would win Grand Slams, and Sabalenka said: “Honestly, I thought that I was going to stop playing tennis because it was so bad. But it was our dream with my dad and I was like, ‘I cannot quit. He wouldn’t accept this.’
“He would say like, ‘You f***ing kidding me? You’re going to be tough, like a champion.’ And I was like, ‘No, I have to keep going. I just have to.’” And the 25-year-old has since achieved the dream she and her father shared – going on to win her maiden Major title at this year’s Australian Open.
Part two of Break Point will be released on Netflix on June 21.
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