Aryna Sabalenka had a disappointing end to her campaign at the 2026 Wimbledon Championships.
Attempting to win her first Grand Slam outside of hard court, Sabalenka fell to Naomi Osaka in the fourth round of the grass-court major.
She lost in straight sets to Osaka, marking another underwhelming run in a difficult stretch of form for the world number one.
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Since winning the Miami Open in March, Sabalenka has made just one semifinal, the Berlin Open, where she was knocked out by Jessica Pegula, who bagelled her in the third set.
After Sabalenka’s early exit at Wimbledon, former Australian Open champion Carolina Wozniacki came to the defence of the Belarusian.
Caroline Wozniacki discusses Aryna Sabalenka’s form
As per Tennis 365, Wozniacki said: “I think it’s hard, right? We expect so much from her. We expect her to just get to the finals easy every week and win everything, but she’s human, as well.
“There’s a lot of players out there who are working hard every day, who are following her and seeing every single movement she makes on court. It’s difficult. As humans, we will go up and down a little bit.
“And you’ve gotta give credit where credit is due. I think Naomi played extremely well, I think she deserved to win that match, just with the tennis that she played.
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“I think it was the best tennis I’ve seen from her in a while. Sometimes, you’ve just got to say congratulations [to the opponent], and I hope that she is enjoying a little bit of vacation and enjoying just being away from the court a little bit.
“And I have no doubt that we’ll see her back on the hard-court swing fit to fight and fully ready to win.”
Aryna Sabalenka’s results at Grand Slams so far in 2026
Sabalenka’s Grand Slam season started with a near miss at the Australian Open, where she lost to Elena Rybakina in the final.
She had not dropped a set until the title bout with Rybakina, but conceded the opener and the decider to the Kazakh star.
At Roland Garros, Sabalenka was looking to match or improve on her runner-up finish from 2025, but suffered a shocking quarterfinal loss to 25th seed Diana Shnaider.
Sabalenka beat Osaka in the third round of the French Open, but the Japanese was fired up for revenge in their Wimbledon meeting.
Osaka overcame Sabalenka 6-2, 7-6, giving the world’s best player just one more shot at a major triumph in 2026: The US Open.
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