Despite coming into the 2025 Australian Open as defending champion and currently sitting atop the WTA battleground as reigning no.1 queen, Aryna Sabalenka has started talking “retirement” with her fans.
In a surprising video shared just her first Aus Open match, she broached the subject.
The gist of her suggestions — which did have a slight air of Sabalenka’s usual jokes — was that she was thinking more and more about family as well as managing her body. “I’m not running that much. I need to save my hips, my back,” she joked at one point.
She also pointed out that Mirra Andreeva, a young gun quickly rising through the women’s ranks, was nine years younger than her and starting to nip at her heels already. “I played an exhibition with Mirra — I’m nine years older than her. Nine. Being a professional athlete, I’m getting really close to my retirement.
“Can you believe that?” she added. “People are retiring at like 30.”
It did, of course, shock her fans who watched the video; many asked if she was being serious.
“I don’t know, it’s a tough question,” the reigning women’s tennis queen began.
“I hope I’ll have [a] family. I love kids, I don’t want to have my first kid at 35. I really want to have a kid and then come back. I want my kid to see how hard you should work in life to get things.
“So yeah, I don’t know. That’s a very deep conversation.”
It would be quite a shock if Sabalenka called time on her career as soon as 2025 — though Australian gun Ash Barty called time at 25 when she was still number one — and one The Sporting Base doesn’t expect to happen any time soon. Instead, the Belarusian superstar, who is still actually just 26, was probably speaking in the ‘near’ future: Say, early 30s.
She’s still playing at the peak of her powers, showing as much when she downed one-time US Open champ Sloane Stephens in Melbourne on Sunday in a quick 6-3, 6-2 victory.
“I’m super happy to be back, I love this place,” Sabalenka told the Rod Laver Arena crowd after 71 minutes on court. The 26-year-old last tasted defeat in Melbourne in the calendar year’s opening Grand Slam back in 2022, since winning now 15 straight matches at the AO.
“It was a tough match – always tough matches against her. It’s not like I played my best probably, but I’m happy I was able to close this match in straight sets. Melbourne Park feels like home.”
Sabalenka’s clearly still loving tennis too: Her post-match dance should prove that, if nothing else.
