Grand Designs: With style and flair, Aryna Sabalenka reflects on 2024 season, return to No. 1

Aryna Sabalenka is learning to multitask.

“I can talk and sign,” she smiles, pausing to uncap her pen.

In front of the former and future world No. 1 is a table full of merch from the Dongfeng Voyah Wuhan Open, a tournament she’s never lost but hasn’t attended since 2019, six months before COVID-19 caused the sport—and the world—to lock down.

Her five-year absence from Wuhan has made her no less popular: two volunteers brave the chilly press conference anteroom to watch reverently as she draws her signature across the brim of a cap. Another lingers as she conducted a video interview, hoping she would autograph a newspaper with the top seed on the cover.

In between us on the couch is a card a fan had given her. Her name is emblazoned on the oversized bookmark in boldfaced type, along with an epithet about “the tiger and the rose.” Cutting across the text is Sabalenka’s arm, the one bearing her now-iconic tiger tattoo. From tennis to Tik Tok, Sabalenka has become a celebrity.

I really love my job, for the opportunities to meet great people and learn from the greatest people in the world...This is the dream life. Aryna Sabalenka

“This is the dream life,” she tells me, describing a dance set to Meghan Trainor’s “Criminals.” Sitting atop the comments is a shout-out from the “All About That Bass” artist herself. “I actually didn’t know where the dance had come from as I was learning it, but later on, I watched The Perfect Couple, and I saw the characters doing that dance on the beach.

“It looks easy, but to put it all together, I practiced for about 20 minutes before recording.”

The 26-year-old enjoyed more brushes with fame in the aftermath of her US Open victory, blitzing the morning talk shows and taking in New York’s Fashion Week finale.

“I really love my job, for the opportunities to meet great people and learn from the greatest people in the world,” she sighs. “The media was different, and I was a little tight because of my English. I was hoping to not make a lot of mistakes and was afraid I wouldn’t make any sense!

“That experience actually motivates me to win many more times, so I can experience all of that again.”

A trip to the Off-White show introduced her to musicians, models, and even Olympians—posing with Paris Jackson, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Sunisa Lee—and further fueled her own sartorial ambitions.

“Fashion is something I’m really crazy about,” says Sabalenka, who has earned high marks for all three post-Slam trophy shoots. “I really hope that one day I’ll have my own line. I don’t know, maybe I’m thinking about that too much…maybe not too much, but a lot, and it’s one of my dreams.”

While Nike swathed Naomi Osaka in an unforgettable harajuku fantasy for Flushing Meadows, Sabalenka stuck to cleaner lines with her kits, hoping to experiment with textures and silhouettes on par with style icon Maria Sharapova. With Rafael Nadal set to retire at the end of the season, Nike may be ready to more fully embrace The Girl with the Tiger Tattoo, gifting her a custom zip-up hoodie ahead of her fourth consecutive trip to the WTA Finals.

“I’m creating a lot of dresses in my head and messaging Keisha, my agent at Nike, like, ‘Girl, I came up with another idea!’ I see a lot of new things in fashion; I follow it a lot and I like it. Somehow, those inspire me to come up with ideas for my own dresses. Ideally, I’d like a designer to help me make something cool.”

The rose, it seems, is in full bloom, but the tiger is what Sabalenka still plans to show on court.

I’m strong enough to handle anything, and knowing that that really helps me. Aryna Sabalenka

“I’m a fighter,” she says, setting aside the Sharpie, “and in most tough situations, I just keep reminding myself that I’ve been through a lot, and I’ve overcome a lot of things on and off the court.”

For all her success in 2024—two Slams, two WTA 1000s, and a return to No. 1—adversity has been ever present. Two months after mounting a winning defense of her Australian Open crown, Sabalenka learned of the suicide committed by ex-partner Konstantin Koltsov. The former world No. 1 hadalready suffered the untimely loss of her father in late 2019, and played through visible grief at the Miami Open. She endured further heartbreak when illness and injury followed in the summer, hindering her at Roland Garros and forcing her out of Wimbledon entirely.

“I wouldn’t choose these challenges for my life, but whatever it is, I’m going through it,” she told me before the Cincinnati Open. “It only makes me stronger as a person.”

Sabalenka has only lost one match since, kicking off a brat summer and capturing back-to-back victories in Cincy and the US Open, where she’d suffered bitter losses three years running. She remained unbeaten in Wuhan, outlasting Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in three physical sets.

Though the Chinese crowd were enthusiastic in their support for Zheng—at times distractingly so, crying out mid-point and between serves—they were warm in their reception of Sabalenka, playing her "Tiger" theme song over the Center Court speakers. Having overcome Americans to win both of her U.S. titles this summer, Sabalenka has matured into the challenge of playing a partisan crowd.

One concern does remain: where to store her bourgeoning trophy collection.

“Right now, they’re at my house in Miami just in random places,” she shyly admitted. “There’s a dresser drawer in my room with a lot of trophies, and when my mom found it, she was so pissed! For now, I think I need to at least get them in one room, but maybe it’s nice to have them randomly about the house.”

Embracing a controlled chaos is on brand for Sabalenka, whose kooky persona and broad comedy belies unwavering belief in her talent and potential to improve. Her Wuhan championship point was illustrative of both: opening with a powerful return, she took Zheng by surprise with a drop shot that opened up the court, allowing her to clinch the title with a backhand volley.

The woman who struggled to put a serve in the court two years ago is on her way to becoming the most complete player in tennis, continuing her work with biomechanic coach Gavin MacMaillan and adding nuance to an already-fearsome ground game.

“It definitely gives you so much confidence because you know how things work,” she said after thumping good friend Yulia Putintseva 6-0 in the third set of their Wuhan third round. “You’ve tried it in the match, you know it works. Whatever situation you’re facing, like if you don't feel your forehand or backhand, you know exactly the steps you have to make to bring that shot back.”

If the field is unnerved by Sabalenka’s continued ascent, they struggle to resent it, instead finding themselves won over by her exuberance. The typically introverted Iga Swiatek, who lost No. 1 to Sabalenka two weeks ago, is filming Tik Toks with her in Riyadh. Coco Gauff saw her own disappointment by a bad serving day in Wuhan blunted by an empathetic Sabalenka: the two laughingly tripped into a hug at net after a three-set semifinal.

“I was playing that match thinking, like, ‘Well, girl, I feel you. I feel you like nobody else,’” said Sabalenka, ever self-deprecating.

A hurricane of charisma, Sabalenka nonetheless speaks with a clarity that she lacked even a year ago, when she allowed frustrations over conditions at the WTA Finals in Cancun ruin her chance of finishing 2023 as year-end No. 1. In a near-identical position to last year—albeit with a slightly larger lead over Swiatek—fame appears to have only sharpened Sabalenka’s focus as she prepares for the final task of 2024.

“I’m strong enough to handle anything,” Sabalenka says as volunteers gather her collectibles, “and knowing that that really helps me.”