{"id":108143,"date":"2026-07-11T08:00:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T12:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=108143"},"modified":"2026-07-10T18:03:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T22:03:28","slug":"sabalenka-further-natural-surface-slam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2026\/07\/11\/sabalenka-further-natural-surface-slam\/","title":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka is Further Than Ever From a Natural Surface Slam"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> has been a top-10 seed of every natural surface Grand Slam she\u2019s played since Wimbledon 2019 and has been the No. 1 seed since the 2025 French Open. She\u2019s made one final, four semifinals, and two quarterfinals. But despite her ranking, strong results, and four hardcourt Grand Slams, Sabalenka\u2019s best chances to win Roland Garros or Wimbledon may be behind her.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sabalenka Is Further Than Ever From a Natural Surface Slam<\/h2>\n

Sabalenka\u2019s first big run at a natural surface Slam came at Wimbledon in 2021. Seeded second, she went on a high-quality run, defeating Elena Rybakina and Ons Jabeur, who would both be in the Wimbledon final the next year. Sabalenka\u2019s run came to an end in a loss to No. 8 seed Karolina Pliskova, who in turn lost to top seed Ashleigh Barty in the final. The Belarusian kept the match with Pliskova close, though, and it was a positive run as she was still finding her footing at Grand Slams despite her high ranking.<\/span><\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t have the chance to back up her result, though, as she was banned from Wimbledon in 2022 due to the war in Ukraine. As for the French Open, Sabalenka had never been past the third round. Most of her success on clay came in Madrid, which played much differently to the French Open and other clay courts due to its high altitude.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At this point in her career, Sabalenka hadn\u2019t won a Grand Slam at all, let alone one on a natural surface. The distinction wasn\u2019t important until 2023, when she won the Australian Open. <\/span>Breaking that barrier<\/span><\/a> of winning a Grand Slam completely changed Sabalenka\u2019s career, as she rose to World No. 1 for the first time at the 2023 US Open and improved almost every aspect of her game\u2014and she did so on all surfaces.<\/span><\/p>\n

Close Calls<\/h3>\n

In 2023, Sabalenka suffered extremely close semifinal losses at both Roland Garros and Wimbledon. At Roland Garros, she lost in a three-hour epic to Karolina Muchova in which Sabalenka held a match point, and at Wimbledon, she was defeated by Jabeur. Both semifinal losses were tight three-setters, and it felt like she was bound to come through one of them soon.<\/span><\/p>\n

She won the Australian Open again in 2024, but physical issues derailed her natural surface Slam season. She suffered from illness at the French Open, resulting in a quarterfinal loss to Mirra Andreeva, and was forced to withdraw from Wimbledon due to a shoulder injury. But she went on to win the US Open and was firmly the best player in the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At the 2025 French Open, she finally came through one of those three-set semifinals, defeating four-time Roland Garros champion Iga Swiatek. Sabalenka won the third set of that match 6-0, reversing her fate from her previous semifinals. She was the favorite in the final against Coco Gauff and had all the momentum after winning the first set in a tiebreak. But she was broken immediately at the outset of the second set, and Gauff <\/span>never looked back<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That was the closest Sabalenka ever got to a French Open title, and a few weeks later, Wimbledon slipped through her fingers too as she found herself on the wrong end of a three-set semifinal once again. She <\/span>lost<\/span><\/a> to Amanda Anisimova, who Swiatek then crushed<\/span>\u00a0in the final.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She added a second US Open title and a completed Sunshine Double to her accolades heading into the 2026 clay season and grass season. Having come so close to both natural surface Slam titles in 2025 and in dominant form, Sabalenka seemed <\/a><\/span>poised<\/span> to take one.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

2026 Has Been No Different<\/h3>\n

But she didn\u2019t even get to a three-set loss in the semifinals or final. At the French Open, one of the most open Grand Slams of the decade, Sabalenka lost in the quarterfinals to Diana Shnaider after holding a set and double break advantage. And at Wimbledon, Sabalenka lost in straight sets to Naomi Osaka, a player she defeated three times this season. It was Osaka\u2019s first time in the fourth round of Wimbledon, and it was Sabalenka\u2019s first straight-set loss at a Grand Slam since the 2021 US Open.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Unlike 2024, Sabalenka\u2019s 2026 Roland Garros and Wimbledon performances weren\u2019t derailed by injury. Instead, she had one loss from a lead that a player of her caliber should be able to hold onto and another that was the least competitive Grand Slam match she\u2019s played in six years. And with the depth of the WTA only getting stronger with each passing year, Sabalenka\u2019s window to claim titles at the French Open and Wimbledon is rapidly closing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She had excellent chances. She had the match point against Muchova, the third set against Gauff, the edge in experience against Anisimova. But she couldn\u2019t capitalize, and those chances may not materialize again.<\/span><\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane – Imagn Images<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aryna Sabalenka has been a top-10 seed of every natural surface Grand Slam she\u2019s played since Wimbledon 2019 and has been the No. 1 seed since the 2025 French Open. She\u2019s made one final, four semifinals, and two quarterfinals. But despite her ranking, strong results, and four hardcourt Grand Slams, Sabalenka\u2019s best chances to win […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5769,"featured_media":86591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,15913,6,4],"tags":[1766,204,896,21,364],"class_list":["post-108143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-french-open","category-opinion","category-wimbledon","category-wta","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-french-open","tag-roland-garros","tag-wimbledon","tag-wta-tour"],"modified_by":"Shane Black","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5769"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108143"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108213,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108143\/revisions\/108213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}