Rennae Stubbs has suggested that Aryna Sabalenka is doing something that no other player on the WTA Tour is.
Sabalenka is the world number one and has been since October 2024, having been at the top of the WTA rankings for 92 weeks in her two spells.
The four-time Grand Slam champion will continue to be world number one after Roland Garros, which was confirmed following Elena Rybakina’s shock defeat in the second round.
Sabalenka continues to make improvements to her game, and six-time Grand Slam doubles champion Stubbs believes she knows the reason why.
Rennae Stubbs claims WTA players don’t practice volleying enough
When asked about the recent improvements Sabalenka has made in the most recent episode of The Rennae Stubbs Tennis Podcast, the Australian highlighted the recent addition of Max Mirnyi to her team.
Mirnyi won 10 Grand Slam doubles titles in his career, and Stubbs believes he has made a notable addition to Sabalenka’s net game since he joined her team in August last year.
“I think the reason that Sabalenka keeps adding to her game is that she keeps adding different people to her coaching box as well,” said Stubbs.
“You see Max Mirnyi come in, Max Mirnyi is going to concentrate a lot on her forward progress game, her net game, her transition into the net, and that’s what she’s trying to add to her game, she’s trying to add more volleying, coming into the net, being more aggressive at those sort of times and being able to finish the point at the net rather than hit winners and when she plays against people like Coco Gauff and even [Elina] Svitolina, these players that run and move so well on the baseline, you have to win the point sometimes at the net, rather than on the baseline.”
Can anyone realistically stop Aryna Sabalenka from going ‘all the way’ at Roland Garros this year? 🏆
Stubbs was then asked why she thinks other WTA players are not so comfortable at the net, as she then called them out for not practicing their volleys enough, unlike Sabalenka.
“Because they don’t practice it! They practice an hour and 20 minutes on their groundstrokes, they do 10 minutes of serves, they do five minutes of volleys, it’s ridiculous!” exclaimed Stubbs.
“So I think that if you want to improve your net game, you have to practice at the net and that’s the whole point of why you have to spend 10 to 15 minutes a day, minimally on your volleys if you want to improve them.
“You’ll see Sabalenka, she’ll be out there for 20 minutes practicing her volleys, because that’s what is going to win her a lot of these matches come the pointy end of a tournament.”
While Stubbs has praised Sabalenka for the improvements she has made to her game, she actually picked Karolina Muchova as the top 10 player with the best technique in women’s tennis right now.
“I would say technically, Sabalenka is pretty good when it comes to most of her technique, she kind of gets her racket back really quickly, obviously look her ground strokes are quite large the back swing, so it’s not ideal,” said Stubbs. “I think Rybakina and Sabalenka’s backhand are as good as you get, the forehand of Rybakina’s sometimes goes off a bit, but it’s not bad.
“Coco’s backhand is as gorgeous as you get, technically on the forehand not great, same with Iga Swiatek. I’d say Jess Pegula has the most sort of like compact, easy strokes on both the forehand and backhand, and Amanda Anisimova as well technique on the backhand.
“Most of them have unbelievable technique on the backhands, like [Mirra] Andreeva, [Victoria] Mboko, but I would say the prettiest in the top 10 anyway is definitely Karolina Muchova.”
How many Grand Slams will Aryna Sabalenka win this year?
She looks unstoppable right now!
Rennae Stubbs calls lack of electronic line calling at Roland Garros ‘ridiculous’
WTA players not practicing their volleys enough is not the only thing that Stubbs has taken issue with, as she also called out the lack of electronic line calling at Roland Garros this year.
Roland Garros is the only Grand Slam tournament not to use electronic line calling, instead leaving chair umpires to judge the ball marks on the clay, and Stubbs believes this is ‘ridiculous’ and needs to change.
“Hell yes! I’ve said this for at least a year. I think it’s ridiculous, we’ve seen some arguments already,” said Stubbs.
“I don’t care what anybody says, even if the line calling is a bit off with the machine, it’s been a bit suspect every now and again, it is the same for the player, it’s the same for both players. If you get ripped off one time, chances are your opponent is probably going to get ripped off in the same spot.
“So as far as I’m concerned to fasten the game up and take it out of the hands of the human eye looking at these things, yes Roland Garros should get electronic line calling should do line calling.”
Stubbs added, “You want the old system back, well I can tell you the players not so much. Because, I know that the ball mark shows, but it is really hard even for tennis players who see the ball all the time.
“There are times that we can look at a ball mark and not agree, we can say it’s touching the line, oh I don’t think it’s touching the line. It happened the other day with Sabalenka and [Barbora] Krejcikova, and Krejcikova was like ‘Oh it’s touching’ and she said ‘No it’s not’.
“So even players can’t really tell, because the way they sweep the line there’s always a bit of a gap, you can never really tell, so I would just rather electronic line calling call it and not have the arguments.”
