Aryna Sabalenka is currently the dominant force on the WTA Tour, but she reportedly came so close to quitting back in 2022.
Had she made that call, the entire landscape of the women’s game would look so different, given how dominant the 27-year-old has been not just on hard courts, but across all surfaces now.
Her game is so powerful and fine-tuned that it should be impervious to outside conditions, and yet across 2025, she was prohibited by things she could not control.
Ironically, it was the exact opposite issue that nearly caused her to call time on her career three years ago, according to her coach Jason Stacy.
Aryna Sabalenka’s coach reveals why they nearly quit tennis in 2022
Speaking on The Line podcast, he has now revealed that in one of her darkest moments back in 2022, he offered Aryna Sabalenka two choices.
The first was to give up and quit on the spot, or the second was to give herself totally to a new method that could revolutionise her career. With nothing to lose, we now know that she took the latter option, and the women’s game is so thankful that she did.
Stacy recalled that moment: “One of the things I said to her, if I remember exactly was, you know, ‘Do you want to keep fighting?’ Cause that’s what she was doing, showing up and fighting. ‘Or do you want to win?’ Because there’s a big difference. This is where she needs to transition.
“Because that’s a big difference, right? Yeah. It’s like grind it out, you know, show up. Yeah, great, you’re tough. Good job. Ain’t gonna get you anywhere.
“You got you to this point, but that’s not who’s gonna get you to the next level. At this level, just being tough and all that, showing up, great. You can go make some more memes on Instagram, like everybody else, and act like everyone else is, you know, it’s a facade, just a bunch of BS, right?
“And I told her, I was like, ‘Listen, we’re either gonna get this guy, we’re gonna do this biomechanic thing, or done. That’s it, we’re quitting. The season is over. And we may or may not come back. That’s it. There’s nothing else. This is it right now. You’re not gonna keep showing up doing the same thing over and over again. It’s ridiculous, right? We need help. You need help. We have someone who can help. That’s what’s happening.’
“And she goes, Fine. She was like, she had nothing to lose. She was done, rock bottom. Finally she was like, Okay, let’s do it, you know?”
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It did not take long for her long-time coach to realise they were on the right path with Gavin MacMillan: “Two seconds in, I could tell he was the guy.
“It was either, she was done. She thought for sure she was done, or give this thing a try. And she was coachable, she was open, within weeks, she was like, this, like, nothing, like, it was like night and day.”
Coco Gauff brought in Gavin MacMillan as her coach earlier this year, in an effort to undergo a similar transformation to solve her serve and forehand issues.
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Naturally, Sabalenka has expressed great gratitude to the biomechanics expert for his work in revolutionising her game.
After all, beforehand she was a threat for elite titles, but routinely fell to shock defeats.
Since his appointment and the subsequent work he has done, those losses feel far less commonplace.
Speaking about their working relationship after Gauff had announced their partnership, Sabalenka admitted: “Yeah, I’m really grateful for his help during really tough times.
“So for me, it was basically, like, couple of weeks, and I was sort of fixed. But everyone is different, and I wish them both the very best and hopefully everything can work out well for them.”
