In four matches in Melbourne Sabalenka hit 56 double faults, which is the equivalent
of more than two sets, as another Grand Slam attempt slipped away
A ryna Sabalenka ended 2021 as the world No 2, having taken a major step forward in her career by reaching her first Grand Slam semi-final at Wimbledon. As the new year began, many were tipping her tomaintain her momentumby going all the way at the Australian Open. In her first match of 2022, however, Sabalenka hit 18 double faults as she lost to Kaja Juvan in Adelaide. It was a shocking statistic, even for the Belarusian, who has topped theWTA tour stats in double faults in each of the past two years but had usuallymanaged to compensate by hitting plenty of aces. Yet the next time Sabalenka played, again in Adelaide, things were evenworse. In hitting 21 double faults in her defeat to Rebecca Peterson, it got so bad that she even resorted to serving underarm. At the Australian Open the following week Sabalenka laughed about hitting “only 10 double faults” after her third-round win. In four matches in Melbourne she hit 56 double faults in total, which is the equivalent of more than two sets, as another Grand Slamattempt slipped away. Some of Sabalenka’s serves were landing a long way out of court, while others fell tamely into the net. Like many players before her, she was experiencing the dreaded “yips”, a word so taboo in professional tennis that it is considered too dangerous tomention, for fear it may be catching. “It’s not about my
a leading sports psychologist in the United States withmore than 25 years’ experience in treating world-class sportsmen and women who are suffering with the yips. “What happens is that the athlete tends to lose the ability to perform smoothly under pressure. Often it means that they kind of get passive or weak in their movement, whether it’s a tennis forehand, a serve, a golfing putt. All of a sudden it becomes quite a traumatic experience because they get very embarrassed. That’s a traumatic experience, on top of the initial tension that is breaking through. And so when that happens, then you really have a spiralling, out-of-control process.” An errant ball toss is usually the first sign. Most players throwup a bad ball toss every now and then, but when the problem becomes as bad as it was for Ana Ivanovic it can be destructive. Ivanovic won the French Open in 2008 and was world No 1, only to find herself tossing the ball upmuch too far to her right. It affected not only the mechanics of her serve but also her belief and ability to perform, especially under pressure. Find a video of Ivanovic serving in 2008 and you will see a player with a perfect ball toss and a strong, fluid service action. But as early as the following year, the ball toss went astray and she spent the rest of her career trying to manage it. As the former player and top broadcaster Mary Carillo famously once said in commentary: “That’s a lot of footwork for a serve.”
serve,” Sabalenka told reporters. “If you see me serving on the practice court, it’s perfect. It’s an amazing serve. I think it’s all about in here [pointing to her head]. I have muscle memory and I just have to trust myself.” Tommy Armour, a Scottish golfer who struggled with short putts later in his career, is widely credited with naming it “the yips”. He also called it a “brain freeze”. Over the years, numerous golfers have struggled with the yips, including TomWatson, a five-time Open champion, Bernhard Langer, twice a Masters champion, Ben Hogan, whose troubles eventually led to his retirement, and Ian Baker-Finch, who won the Open in 1991 before the problem took hold. In gymnastics the yips are called “the twisties”, made famous by the travails of Simone Biles at the Olympics last summer. The yips can also affect baseball pitchers, skiers and even darts players. Eric Bristow, five times a world darts champion, struggled to release the dart fromhis hand towards the end of his career. He called it “dartitis”. In tennis, the yips are largely focused on the serve. Like the putt in golf or the pitch in baseball, it is a shot that is in the player’s total control. It is the least instinctive shot in the sport and consequently the one where the mind can get in the way. The yips can come out of nowhere, but getting rid of them is very, very difficult. “Basically, they are a formof tension, anxiety, an anxiety disorder,” says Dr Thomas Ferraro,
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