Aryna Sabalenka’s U.S. Open Racket Smash Wasn’t Pretty. She Deserves Her Fine, but Not the Criticism.

Aryna Sabalenka fell short of defending her U.S. Open title against Elena Rybakina at Flushing Meadows this year. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters

It’s not easy to lose with grace. U.S. Open runner-up Aryna Sabalenka would know a thing or two about that.

Sabalenka failed to complete her ambitious U.S. Open three-peat at Flushing Meadows this year, faltering in three sets (4-6, 7-5, 2-6) against tennis’s newly crowned queen Elena Rybakina, who ultimately proved to be the better player having stolen Sabalenka’s world No. 1 ranking in her match prior. After Sabalenka shook hands with her rival at the net, she was seen smashing her racket onto the court on her bench in a heated moment of frustration. She has since been fined $7,500 by the USTA for violating the following code from the Grand Slam rulebook: “Players shall not violently or with anger hit, kick or throw a racquet or other equipment within the precincts of the tournament site.”

Ten other players at this year’s U.S. Open also received fines for racket abuse, yet Sabalenka’s fit of rage went more viral given her status in the sport and the weight of the final match. Why couldn’t she have acted with more humility, like Frances Tiafoe leaping over the net to hug Ben Shelton in the men’s semifinal? Why couldn’t she control her emotions, like Rybakina did after clinching her maiden U.S. Open title? The criticism was nearly instantaneous as fans on social media tore into Sabalenka for what they believed was her old habits flaring up again.

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Sabalenka has been down this road many times before. After losing to then 19-year-old Coco Gauff in the 2023 U.S. Open final, Sabalenka violently took out her frustration on one of her rackets inside the player’s area. In January 2025, Sabalenka lost to Madison Keys in the Australian Open final and threw her racket in a fit of disgust. When she lost to Gauff again in the 2025 French Open final, she was more merciful on her own gear but notably dismissed Gauff in her post-match conference.

“[Coco] won the match not because she played incredible, just because I made all of those mistakes,” Sabalenka told reporters.

And later that year, Sabalenka nearly hit a ball kid with her tennis racket after losing to American Jessica Pegula in the Wuhan Open semifinals.

Une pensée émue pour la pauvre raquette d'Aryna Sabalenka, battue en finale de l'#USOpen par Coco Gauff 🙏 pic.twitter.com/WJmA2TSUtW

— Eurosport France (@Eurosport_FR) September 10, 2023

“I want to be a good example, maybe. Sometimes I’m not a good example. But maybe also an example of what not to do,” Sabalenka said following the incident.

If Sabalenka truly wanted to set a good example, the four-time Grand Slam champion has had more than her share of opportunities to do so. At this point in her decade-long pro career, after her repeated tantrums and emotional outbursts, Sabalenka shouldn’t be striving to be the paragon of class in women’s tennis. It’s just not who she is. In this year’s U.S. Open, Sabalenka proved, as she has time and time again, that this is who she is: Someone who smashes her racket after tough losses. And that’s perfectly O.K.

Fans getting bent out of shape over Sabalenka’s racket-abusing antics should examine whether they feel the same about Victor Wembanyama not shaking Knicks players’ hands after the Spurs lost the NBA Finals, or about former Miami QB Carson Beck walking off the field of the national championship game without congratulating Fernando Mendoza. Are “women too emotional” in sports, or do sports naturally bring out the rawest emotion in players, and female athletes get villainized by the media when they don’t fit societal expectations?

“People are often looking for a reason to be upset about something and go Twitter finger their account, right?” Tennis great Andy Roddick said on his podcast Served with Jon Wertheim. “... I’m not even mad if you break your own s—. I don’t care. As long as you’re gracious, like, to your point. Now, if she’s breaking a racket, like, could she do it after? Yeah. Am I going to be personally offended that she broke her own thing? No. I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

Aryna Sabalenka has since apologized to Coco Gauff over her unsportsmanlike comments after Gauff won the 2025 French Open. | USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Connect

It’s one thing to be a sore loser. Sabalenka unfortunately played that part when she lost to Gauff in Paris last year, and has since apologized for her unsportsmanlike behavior. But it’s a wholly separate thing to smash your racket knowing that you made too many mistakes and could’ve done better. Following her U.S. Open defeat, Sabalenka congratulated Rybakina on a well-deserved victory. She became exasperated by a cameraman who zoomed in on her on the bench (so did Carlos Alcaraz after he lost to Shelton), but she gave her opponent her rightful flowers. She conceded that the better player that day won. However she chooses to let out her internal rage and frustration is her own right, within limits of course (don’t hurt the ball kids!).

“It’s really tough to control your emotions when you lose in the final of the Grand Slam and when you were trying to go for three-peat,” Sabalenka said after losing to Rybakina. “So I just wanted to let it go, because if I would hold it inside, right now or there on the court, I wouldn’t be able to say a word, or I would just go not really nice over there. So I just wanted to let all of that aggression and disappointment go outside.”

The pressure and weight of expectations that Sabalenka continues to put on herself, match after match, Grand Slam final after Grand Slam final, is tremendous. It’s one of the hallmarks of an elite professional athlete. So too, some would say, is losing with utmost class. Forgive Sabalenka if she hasn’t figured that out. It’s not that easy.

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