Aryna Sabalenka skipped the junior Grand Slams and still reached world No. 1
Aryna Sabalenka took up tennis because her father, an ice hockey player, spotted some courts while driving through Minsk and stopped. She never played a junior Grand Slam, peaked at only 225 in the junior rankings, and still went on to spend 107 weeks as the world's top-ranked woman.
Her junior career was unusually low-key. She played Tennis Europe age-group events instead of the international junior circuit, entered her first ITF junior main draw at 15 in a minor Estonian tournament, and in 2015 the Belarusian federation persuaded her camp to switch to small professional events while she was still young enough for juniors. She had already tried the women's circuit from 2012, losing every main-draw match in her first five tournaments, all in Minsk.
The climb was steady rather than spectacular. Back-to-back $10k titles in Antalya in October 2015 got her going, and she ended 2016 at No. 137. In 2017 she and Aliaksandra Sasnovich, both ranked outside the top 75, carried Belarus to the Fed Cup final, and she reached her first WTA final in Tianjin against her childhood idol Maria Sharapova, losing narrowly. At Eastbourne in 2018 she beat defending champion Karolína Plíšková for her first win over a top-ten player.
Doubles brought an early peak. Partnering Elise Mertens from 2019, she won Indian Wells and Miami back to back that spring, then the US Open, and after the pair's 2021 Australian Open title she became doubles No. 1 before giving up doubles to focus on singles.
Her first major singles title came at the 2023 Australian Open. She defended it in 2024, won the US Open that year and again in 2025, and finished both seasons as year-end No. 1. In 2026 she completed the Indian Wells and Miami double in singles and was named Laureus Sportswoman of the Year.
Source: Aryna Sabalenka
