The world No 1 was in cruise control against as she led Sorana Cirstea after racing to a 6-2, 2-0, but she allowed momentum to turn and slumped to a shocking 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 defeat against her 36-year-old opponent.
The loss was laced with controversy as she was accused of taking an injury time out at a key moment in the deciding set, when her opponent was about to serve.
Taking an injury break before you opponent serves can raise eyebrows, but Sabalenka insisted she was suffering from a lower back problem and had no option.
“I feel like I didn’t play well from the beginning till the end,” Sabalenka said. “I felt like my body was limiting me from performing on the highest level.”
They were words that confirmed Sabalenka is not where she wants to be physically just a few days before the start of the second major of 2026 and after her success of winning the ‘Sunshine Double’ at Indian Wells and Miami, her failures in Madrid and Rome have come as something of a surprise.
Sabalenka appeared to be seperating herself from the pack in women’s tennis during a dominant month of March, but she was a notable absentee from the WTA 500 tournament in Stuttgart a week before the Madrid Open as she eased herself back onto the clay courts.
Now her clay court preparations have been thrown into chaos after the defeat against Cirstea and she has a little over two weeks to get herself ready to challenge for her first Roland Garros title.
While the Belarusian would never make a public declaration over her priorities for this year, it’s safe to assume completing a career Grand Slam collection by winning the French Open and Wimbledon for the first time would have been at the top of her wanted list for this year.
Now the first of those tournaments is on her horizon and it is arriving at a moment when she appears to be at her lowest ebb for some time.
The next two weeks need to be spent finding a solution to her fitness issue and she will want to get to Paris early and look to hit herself into form on clay courts with an extended practice schedule.
She will also have a chance to find form in the early rounds at Roland Garros, as her power hitting should allow her to ease past her opponents in the French Open, but this is not the preparation she would have been hoping for when she started her clay court campaign in Rome.
Sabelanka was pushed by Naomi Osaka before losing against Hailey Baptiste in Madrid and now she is licking her wounds from another shock defeat against Cirstea.
Sabalenka is not used to losing against players at this level and it will give the rest of the women’s game hope that the rankings leader is vulnerable heading into a phase of the season when fitness and form need to unite to achieve success.
