{"id":75784,"date":"2025-05-05T06:34:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T06:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/75784\/"},"modified":"2025-05-05T06:34:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T06:34:08","slug":"aryna-sabalenka-makes-professionalism-claim-after-snooping-on-iga-swiateks-locker-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/75784\/","title":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka makes ‘professionalism’ claim after snooping on Iga Swiatek’s locker | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> explained why she could never be like Iga Swiatek<\/a> after snooping in her rival\u2019s locker at the Madrid Open. The world No. 1 lifted her third title at the Caja Magica<\/a> on Saturday and gave a unique insight into the life of a tennis champion, allowing cameras to follow her after she clinched the trophy.<\/p>\n

Although she\u2019s already claimed her third title of the season and extended her lead atop the rankings, Sabalenka joked that she wasn\u2019t as professional as Swiatek after having a peek at the world No. 2\u2019s cubby in the player area.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old finished off a long fortnight in Madrid in the perfect way, beating Coco Gauff<\/a> in straight sets to reclaim the trophy.<\/p>\n

But there was still plenty to be done after the last ball was hit, and Sabalenka took fans behind the scenes as she unwound and completed her commitments.<\/p>\n

The top seed returned to the player gym for a much-needed cool-down, taking her shoes off before receiving treatment, when she was asked how many pairs she had left.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this one and one more,\u201d Sabalenka replied. \u201cIt was four and I only used two.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turning to the camera, the Belarusian shared an amusing story about Swiatek\u2019s habits, admitting she had a look at her rival\u2019s set-up in the locker room.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, I\u2019m not like Iga, you know why, guys?\u201d she smiled. \u201cThe other day I was in the locker room and I had only one pair of shoes and I forgot another one.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I looked at her locker and there was like, under the locker was nine, I think nine or eight pairs of shoes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I was like, \u2018Yeah, someone is really professional and someone is just me\u2019. So bad, I am!\u201d<\/p>\n

While Sabalenka may claim to be less professional than Swiatek, she currently has a huge advantage in the rankings over the five-time Grand Slam champion.<\/p>\n

When the standings update on Monday, Sabalenka will have 11,118 points while Swiatek, in second place, trails with 6,773.<\/p>\n

Swiatek is also defending titles at the Italian Open and French Open over the coming weeks, which means she could get further and further away from Sabalenka.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka explained why she could never be like Iga Swiatek after snooping in her rival\u2019s locker at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[35772,23810,22484,79,1068,5838,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-75784","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-aryna-sabalenka","9":"tag-iga-swiatek","10":"tag-madrid-open","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tennis","13":"tag-tennis-news","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114453840329661215","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}