Sabalenka collapses after leading French Open quarterfinal

Sabalenka collapses – Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka felt the need “to quit tennis right now” after blowing a commanding position in her French Open quarterfinal against Diana Shnaider, losing 3-6, 7-5, 6-0 in Wednesday’s windy, error-strewn match. The loss keeps her waiting for a firs

When Aryna Sabalenka stood at the edge of what looked like an easy finish, the French Open turned on her. She had a set and plenty of control in her quarterfinal against Diana Shnaider, only to unravel in the decisive moments.

Sabalenka, the top-ranked player, lost 3-6, 7-5, 6-0 to Shnaider on Wednesday after wasting a lead of a set and two breaks. After the defeat, she didn’t hide the exhaustion—emotion and all.

“Just want to quit tennis right now,” Sabalenka said. “We’ll see in few days. Hopefully I’ll get back on track mentally.”

Her wait for a first French Open title continues despite the huge advantage she carried. In the second set, Sabalenka led 4-1 and was two points from victory while serving for the match at 5-4. Then, the momentum shifted fast—so fast that she lost 12 of the last 13 games. In conditions described as windy. with Sabalenka increasingly frustrated and forlorn. the rallying began to look like it would never come back.

The collapse carried echoes of last year’s French Open final against Coco Gauff. Sabalenka had also won the first set there, then became undone after a run of unforced errors. This time, the sting will likely take just as long to move past.

“You know those rooms where you just go in and you smash everything,” Sabalenka said. “Probably I will spend a whole day tomorrow over there destroying stuff. Maybe it will help, maybe not.”

Shnaider will play next against Maja Chwalinska after Chwalinska extended her run at Roland Garros by beating No. 22-seeded Anna Kalinskaya 7-6(3), 6-3.

Sabalenka’s frustration also made the match feel personal in the way sport sometimes does when the details start slipping away. With the third set wearing on, she began to look visibly shaken. After missing a volley at the net in the fourth game of the deciding set. she crouched and rested her head on her racket.

She also described the mental spiral that followed the slipping opportunities.

“I just think it’s combination of everything,” Sabalenka lamented. “You overthink, then you make easy mistakes, then you miss opportunities.”

The pattern didn’t appear out of nowhere for her. In the Gauff match, Sabalenka had remonstrated loudly—shouting to herself and glaring toward her team box. She said she still knows what she needs to do when those tough moments arrive.

“I just have to sit back and openly think about what’s going on in my head in those tough moments,” Sabalenka said, recalling that match. “Because I’m quite an experienced player. I have been through so many things, and I overcome so many things.”

Even so, this quarterfinal didn’t break the way she needed it to. She looked agitated when serving for the first set, but she still seemed in control as she served for the match in the second, holding a 30-15 lead.

Shnaider saw that frustration forming and leaned into her own point-by-point focus as it did.

“Of course I saw some moments of her frustration,” Shnaider said. “I know Aryna, that she’s a very emotional person.”

Then Shnaider took the match by the throat.

“Well, honestly I am speechless. Super happy,” Shnaider said. “I feel like I was trying to focus point by point. Not thinking about the score. She is the world No. 1, so I just trying to do my best. I just had to fight for every point.”

The French Open has been churning through favorites, and Sabalenka’s exit is part of a bigger disruption. It came after defending champion Coco Gauff lost in the third round and four-time major winner Iga Swiatek fell in the fourth round. Jannik Sinner—last year’s runner-up—served for the match in a second-round defeat. and 24-time major winner Novak Djokovic wasted a two-set lead in a third-round loss.

As that instability spread, the draw opened for players who were still building their profiles. With both semifinals suddenly without former champions. Opta’s count became part of the story: it was the first major without a former champion in either the men’s and women’s semifinals since the French Open in 1977.

Chwalinska’s path also became one of the tournament’s main human arcs. The unseeded player came through three qualifying rounds and is only the second Polish woman to reach the semifinals at Roland Garros. joining Swiatek. Chwalinska said British player Emma Raducanu’s run to the 2021 US Open title as an 18-year-old qualifier inspired her.

“It was such an impressive run, you know,” Chwalinska recalled. “Also, she was so young.”

When Kalinskaya’s big forehand from the back of the court went out, Chwalinska got her biggest win. She had never been beyond the second round at any major before this tournament.

Her momentum has also looked like money, even if it can’t soften a loss like Sabalenka’s. Chwalinska’s total prize money heading into Roland Garros was $864,030, and reaching the last four here earns her 750,000 euros (about $872,000).

The physical setting mattered too. The roof was open on Court Philippe-Chatrier, and there was a lot of wind. Sabalenka pointed to it bluntly after her match.

“I don’t know why would they keep the roof open when it was crazy windy,” Sabalenka said. “It was very dirty tennis. I don’t know how people could actually just sit there and watch me play.”

Kalinskaya, whose own match didn’t go her way against Chwalinska, described the wind as something she couldn’t overpower.

“I feel like I was fighting against the wind,” she said. “It was cold today, so the ball was going slower. I couldn’t use my speed, my power.”

Across the men’s draw, more Italian energy carried through the quarterfinals. In the men’s quarterfinals, 10th-seeded Flavio Cobolli beat No. 4 Felix Auger-Aliassime 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 and will face fellow Italian Matteo Arnaldi for a spot in the final.

Arnaldi advanced when Matteo Berrettini—another Italian—retired due to an apparent physical issue with Arnaldi leading 7-5, 5-2. Berrettini appeared to have his left groin area treated during a medical timeout earlier in the second set. The Italian showings arrived despite top-ranked Jannik Sinner getting stunned in the second round.

Second-seeded Alexander Zverev and No. 26 Jakub Mensik will meet in the other semifinal.

For Sabalenka, the scoreboard now tells the story that her feelings already tried to contain. She screamed after losing a point to fall 0-30 down in the sixth game of the decider, saved two match points at 0-40 down, and then lost when she sent a shot into the net.

After all of it—after the lead slip, the wind, the errors, and the sudden downturn that swallowed the match—she was left with a message that sounded less like strategy and more like release.

“Just want to quit tennis right now,” she said. “We’ll see in few days.”

Aryna Sabalenka Diana Shnaider French Open quarterfinal Roland Garros tennis