Sabalenka reacts – Aryna Sabalenka, the tournament’s top seed and No. 1, lost in straight sets to Naomi Osaka in the Wimbledon round of 16 on Sunday, July 5, and reacted with a no-nonsense postmatch comment about wanting to forget and reset.
Aryna Sabalenka didn’t even try to dress up what happened on Centre Court.
On Sunday, July 5, the top seed and the No. 1 ranked player in women’s tennis went out in the Wimbledon round of 16. losing in straight sets to Naomi Osaka in what felt like a major upset. The Belarusian star said she wasn’t looking at rankings right now—she was looking for an escape. a reset. and a path back into her own game.
“I don’t even, like, think about ranking today at this point,” Sabalenka told reporters in her post-match press conference that aired on ABC. “I just want to go, get completely drunk, forget about things and try to get better, in better shape.”
Osaka made the key moves early and kept them coming. She controlled the first set with a 6-2 score, then held her nerve in the second to win 7-6 (7-2), sealing the victory in a straight-sets finish.
For Sabalenka, the loss also carried an unusually sharp edge. It was her first defeat to Osaka in eight years, since the 2018 U.S. Open. She had already beaten the four-time major winner three times this year, so the outcome carried the weight of both timing and momentum—something had flipped.
That frustration didn’t come out of nowhere. A month earlier at the French Open, Sabalenka lost in the quarterfinals to Diana Shnaider after holding a one-set and two-break lead. She was then blitzed in the third set, falling 3-6, 7-5, 6-0, and she described the emotional toll afterward.
At Wimbledon, she sounded just as trapped by the mental slide when it matters most. “Just want to quit tennis right now,” Sabalenka said. “We’ll see in a few days. Hopefully I’ll get back on track mentally.”
She added: “I don’t know when’s the last time that happened to me where I lost 10 games in a row. I guess mentally I got into a very deep, deep dark hole and I couldn’t get back mentally on track.”
The sequence of setbacks is stark: a quarterfinal collapse at the French Open after leading late. then a Wimbledon round-of-16 loss in straight sets to a player she hadn’t lost to in years. Sabalenka’s own description ties them together—the same theme of dropping into a mental “dark hole” when the match turns.
Right now, she’s left with a short runway and a clear goal. She plans to step away, reset, and try to return in better shape—mentally and physically—after a Sunday loss that stopped her as the tournament’s top seed.
Aryna Sabalenka Naomi Osaka Wimbledon Centre Court round of 16 top seed No. 1 ranked player French Open Diana Shnaider Chris Eubanks ABC postmatch comments