Aryna Sabalenka has apologized to Coco Gauff in a letter for her remarks after the Roland Garros final. The Belarusian lost to the American earlier this month and spoke after what she called the worst final she had ever played.
Sabalenka made as many as seventy unforced errors in the final. “I don’t think she (Gauff, ed.) won the match because she played incredibly well, but because I made all those mistakes,” the world number one said at the press conference afterwards.
Ten days after the final in Paris, Sabalenka says she “absolutely regrets” her remarks. “That was very unprofessional of me. I let my emotions get the better of me,” she tells Eurosport.
In the meantime, Sabalenka also wrote a letter to Gauff. “I’m just a human being who is still learning. I think we all have those days when we lose control.”
After the Roland Garros final, Sabalenka burst into tears. “I was super emotional and not very smart at that press conference. It took me a while before I looked at it again and understood it. It was a hard but educational lesson for me.”
Sabalenka will be in action this week at the grass tournament in Berlin. There she is preparing for Wimbledon, which, like Roland Garros, she has never won.