EXCLUSIVE Aryna Sabalenka reveals the meaning behind tiger tattoo and her plans for a unique victory dance at Wimbledon

Daily Mail​

10 hours ago

Not all traditions survive at Wimbledon and the dance between the men's and ladies' singles winners at the Champions Dinner is long defunct, or at least at the victors' discretion.
But there is one woman — the title favourite no less — who would bring it back, pimped up for the social media generation.
'If I win the title, of course I'm going to do the dance,' Aryna Sabalenka tells Mail Sport. 'But it would be more like a TikTok dance — the first one, we're going to create a new tradition!'
Sabalenka, 27, is the world No 1 women's tennis needs. In a world where content is king, the Belarusian is the content queen.
The contrast to her predecessor, Iga Swiatek, could not be greater. The Pole is fanatically protective of her privacy whereas, this year, Sabalenka has opened the gates on her glamorous and zany world.
'I was watching my matches and I thought, "Oh my God, I look so aggressive," and I feel like people thought this is the way I am off court as well,' she explains. 'I felt I had to share myself. I want to express myself so people know I'm not as crazy as I am on court.'
That craziness is what makes Sabalenka such a hypnotising presence. She lets fans into her psyche with her bellows of celebration and growls of rage, foot-stamping and mouth-spitting insults at her team. Tennis feels a more visceral, more human endeavour when she is on court.
To be able to connect so profoundly with fans is a precious gift for an athlete but one that has not always been easy to handle.
'When I first came on tour, everyone was teaching me to be quiet, not show your emotions, hold everything inside,' reveals Sabalenka. 'But I found it is much easier when I let those negative emotions go — scream at my team, let it out. It helped me to be more focused, more positive.
'Keeping it inside creates more tension. Sometimes I go too much in these negative emotions, which is also not right. So we have to balance it.'
We are short of nicknames these days in tennis but Sabalenka's is perfect: she is the Tiger, as illustrated by the tattoo on her left forearm.
'I was born in the year of the tiger and on the court you have to fight like a tiger,' she explains. 'In tough moments, I look down at my arm and I know giving up is not an option. It is a reminder I always have to fight.'
Off the court, the tiger is as playful as a kitten. She has one of the closest and best support teams in the game. Coach Anton Dubrov, fitness trainer Jason Stacy and hitting partner Andrei Vasilevski have cultivated an atmosphere of constant striving and constant fun.
A regular pre-match warm-up for Sabalenka is goading Stacy in some way, poking him with sticks or chasing him round the locker room. How is she able to go from this to ferocious competition in the blink of an eye?
'I just have a crazy desire for tennis, a crazy desire to win,' she replies. 'The moment I step on the court, it switches in my head.'
That crazy desire has got the better of her at times, most notoriously after defeat by Coco Gauff in the French Open final.
Sabalenka was deeply ungracious, blaming 'terrible' weather, her own 'terrible' play and saying Swiatek would have beaten Gauff. She apologised to the American privately and publicly but the reconciliation was sealed — how else — by a TikTok dance between them on Centre Court.
'This generation, we're much easier, we're more friendly to each other,' says Sabalenka. 'It feels like a more healthy environment. We need to show the young generation it's not that scary here, we can have fun together.
'We are opponents and there is nothing about friendship on court but off the court, we are nice, we can talk, we can give advice. We can be normal, we can be friends.'
Sabalenka has some unfinished business at Wimbledon. She reached the semi-finals in 2021 and 2023, losing tight matches when she looked the best bet to take the title. In 2022, after the invasion of Ukraine, she was locked out as part of Wimbledon's ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes, and last year she withdrew with a shoulder injury.
The enforced lay-off gave her time to properly grieve her former boyfriend, former ice hockey player Konstantin Koltsov, who had died three months before.
'I didn't want that break but, at the end, it was much needed,' she recalls. 'I was going through a lot and that time off really helped me to reset, start everything over and be more clear in my head.
'Now I'm here at Wimbledon I feel like I'm a different person. I'm super excited to compete — you appreciate that opportunity much more when it has been taken away.'