Aryna Sabalenka on Playing with Pride & Pain in New Vogue Magazine Interview
By Richard Pagliaro | Tuesday, May 19, 2026
Photo credit: Steven Klein/Vogue
Pride and pain are emotional fuel that helped power Aryna Sabalenka to the top of tennis.
In a new interview with Vogue Magazine, Sabalenka shares how her connection to tennis remains rooted in her relationship with her father, Sergey, a former hockey player who introduced her to tennis. Sabalenka’s dad died suddenly in 2019 and she says her desire to make her father proud is a primary reason she stuck with tennis despite fading family fortunes.
“Until I was maybe 13, we were wealthy,” Sabalenka told Vogue. “And then my dad struggled. So many setbacks. I watched him struggle many times in his career but always get up. My parents tried hard to keep things going, and we didn’t really talk about it. But I knew. Parents think we don’t know, but we know.”
Read Aryna Sabalenka’s Vogue Magazine cover story here.
As a 21-year-old Sabalenka was starting her rise up the rankings, her 44-year-old father died suddenly of meningitis in 2019—a death the family feels was preventable and one that the two-time US Open champion said shattered her younger sister. Sabalenka said paramedics twice declined to take her father to the hospital after lowering his temperature.
“I was like, let me f–king carry him to the hospital myself if the ambulance isn’t taking him,” said Sabalenka, who was training in Minsk during the November offseason when her dad died. “They took him on the third day, and it was too late.
“It was even harder for my mom. And I didn’t realize until later how much my sister suffered. We were both daddy’s little girls.”
Sabalenka said she draws her strength and resilience from her departed dad.
“Tennis was fun [when I started], and I feel like it’s really important for coaches to keep it fun,” Sabalenka said. “[My father] was always telling me, ‘If you don’t like it, if you want to quit, just tell us. You don’t have to force yourself to do anything.’
“There was a period when I was probably nine when I was close to giving up. But I saw how proud my dad was of me, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. And then I fell in love again with the sport, much more than before.”
The four-time Grand Slam champion said winning majors is way to honor her father’s memory—and ensure the family name lives on.
“After I lost my father, it’s always been my goal to put our family name in the history of tennis,” Sabalenka said.” Every time I see my name on that trophy, I’m so proud of myself, I’m proud of my family that they never gave up on my dream and that they were doing everything they could to keep me going.”
Though Sabalenka has come under criticism for her sometime volatile eruptions on court, including high-decibel grunting and raging racquet destruction, she defends the fire and desire saying “it’s okay to go nuts” and release festering frustration.
“When I was young, I would get emotional, and then I would get really pissed with myself for getting emotional,” Sabalenka told Vogue. “Now I understand that it’s okay to throw the racket. It’s okay to yell something. It’s okay to go nuts if you feel like you’re holding too much in.
“Sometimes you just need to let it go, to empty it so you’re ready to start over and play the match. Yeah, sometimes it looks ugly and terrible, but I need it in order to keep my head in it.”
The 28-year-old Sabalenka got engaged to long-time partner Georgios Frangulis, a Brazilian businessman in Indian Wells. The couple announced the engagement on March 3rd. Sabalenka, who sports a massive sparkling engagement ring, said she wears the ring during matches as a statement—and joked it can be a weapon, too.
“I see a little bit of my father in him, and I absolutely love it,” Sabalenka of Frangulis. “You know, I would tell him, ‘I’m a big girl, and my hand is big, and a small ring would look very…small.’
“That’s the whole idea [of a large rock]—especially if you’re playing a night match, and the lights are hitting it. Then it’s, like, right in their eyes,” Sabalenka joked.
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