{"id":14577,"date":"2026-05-10T06:06:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T06:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/14577\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T06:06:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T06:06:06","slug":"injury-concern-for-womens-world-number-one-aryna-sabalenka-ahead-of-french-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/14577\/","title":{"rendered":"Injury concern for women’s world number one Aryna Sabalenka ahead of French Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aryna Sabalenka’s French Open preparations suffered a setback following a third-round defeat by Sorana Cirstea at the Italian \u200bOpen, with the world number one now looking to shake off an injury ahead of the Grand Slam that begins this month.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka needed treatment late in \u200bher meeting with \u200cCirstea on Saturday before she fell 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 for her second defeat in three matches after a quarterfinal loss to Hailey Baptiste \u200cat the Madrid Open last month.<\/p>\n

“I feel like I didn’t \u2060play well from the beginning till the end. \u200cI started really well, \u200bbut I dropped the \u200clevel,” four-time Grand Slam champion Sabalenka said in Rome.<\/p>\n

Do you have a story idea about women in sport?<\/p>\n

Email us abcsport5050@your.abc.net.au<\/a><\/p>\n

“I felt like my body was limiting me from performing at the highest level. [Cirstea] stepped in and played incredible tennis. She \u200bdidn’t \u200creally give me many opportunities.<\/p>\n

“That was a tough one. But I guess we never lose, we only learn, \u2060so it’s OK.”<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka’s disappointing clay court swing \u200cfollows a stellar run \u200con hardcourts, during which she captured the Brisbane title, reached the Australian \u200cOpen final and claimed back-to-back trophies in Indian Wells and Miami.<\/p>\n

The Belarusian said she now hoped to \u200crecover \u200bher fitness in \u2060time for the French Open \u2014 which gets underway in Paris on May 24 \u2014 after losing last year’s final against Coco Gauff.<\/p>\n

“I’d say that probably it’s like my lower \u2060back, connected to the hip, which limited my full rotation,” the 28-year-old added.<\/p>\n

“I guess we’re \u200cjust going \u200cto have some days off. We’re going \u200bto spend it on recovery. That’s the plan for now.”<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka’s French Open preparations suffered a setback following a third-round defeat by Sorana Cirstea at the Italian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[19,17,9027,10705,7407,5158,10702,10704,9028,27,10703,100,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-14577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rome","8":"tag-aryna-sabalenka","9":"tag-coco-gauff","10":"tag-french-open","11":"tag-hip","12":"tag-injury","13":"tag-italian-open","14":"tag-loss","15":"tag-lower-back","16":"tag-roland-garros","17":"tag-rome","18":"tag-sorana-cirstea","19":"tag-sport","20":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}