She complained about me to her sponsor, she wanted to fire me," Sabalenka's former coach opens up about their past relationship

© AFP

Arthur Millot

le 21/07/2025 à 10h20

1 min to read

Sabalenka Tursunov

Dmitry Tursunov, a former professional player, shared some insights about his past relationship with the current world number one, Aryna Sabalenka. Having coached the Belarusian for over a year, the Russian revealed that his student could be disrespectful at the beginning:

"For me, it was a period where I was giving my all, sacrificing everything for the result. Aryna, due to her young age and ease, sometimes behaved inappropriately. I didn't do it on purpose, but certain things shocked me.

In 2018, Aryna was playing doubles with Hsieh Su-wei. During the match, she was clearly doing things that aren't done, and that's when I exploded. I told her directly: 'You're screwing up! Laughing, having fun on the court. It's disrespectful to your partner and the opponents. Why waste time? You're not trying to win and you're not preparing for tomorrow's singles final. You have a chance to win the trophy and you're going to ruin everything!'

I was very upset by her behavior, her negligent attitude. Hence the reproach. At that moment, she didn't understand what was going on. She wondered why such a reaction? We argued, Aryna went out to dinner with a training partner. To her, he was a good cop and I was a bad one. Furthermore, she complained about me to her sponsor, she wanted to fire me.