"This is a difficult moment" - Aryna Sabalenka gets brutally honest about postponing plans to have children as tennis takes 'priority'

Aryna Sabalenka recently got honest about the struggles of balancing her tennis career and her ambitions for starting a family. The Belarusian highlighted the challenges of choosing between the two, and reflected on the difficulty of postponing her plans to have children as tennis takes ‘priority’.

Sabalenka is one of the strongest women's singles players on the WTA Tour at the moment. The reigning World No.1 is a four-time Grand Slam champion, having won the 2023 and 2024 Australian Open, as well as the 2024 and 2025 US Open.

Recently, in an interview with Alexander Sokolovskiy on YouTube, Aryna Sabalenka shared her thoughts about starting a family, saying,

“At 18 I thought by 25 I'd win everything I wanted. At 25, I'd have a baby, come back and keep winning. 25 came, I won some stuff, then I thought maybe 27 or 28? Now I'm 27 and I'm like well…a bit later. We'll move it. I realised I wanted to get the most out of my career, see how far I can go.”

She went on to add that her plans for the future were still vague, while emphasising her love for children.

“So it's a rough plan with a possible move. I would like to try to start a family in 5 years and maybe try to come back depending on what stage I will be in my life, but yes, this is a difficult moment. Because if I could, I would have gone now. I love children very much and it seems that children love me and I would really like to but now I have a priority.”

Over the years, tennis has seen several players return to the tour after giving birth, including the likes of Serena Williams, Kim Clijsters, Taylor Townsend and Naomi Osaka.

Aryna Sabalenka shares snaps for her Maldives vacation days after WTA Finals heartbreak

Sabalenka at the 2023 WTA Finals (Image Source: Getty)

Aryna Sabalenka was most recently seen in action at the 2025 WTA Finals, where she was denied the trophy by a dominant Elena Rybakina. After the tournament, the Belarusian showed keen enthusiasm about leaving the tennis world behind in exchange for a vacation, even asking journalists at her press conference to ‘make it quick'.

Now, Aryna Sabalenka is in Maldives, making the most of her time away from the court. Taking to Instagram, the 27-year-old shared snaps of her outing with fans, posing in a cute bikini and spending time with her boyfriend Georgios Frangulis. She captioned the photos,

“Time to chill.”

Overall, Aryna Sabalenka has enjoyed a strong 2025 season. The Belarusian dominated the WTA rankings throughout the year, while winning the US Open and claiming runners-up finishes at the Australian Open and French Open.

Edited by Riddhi Acharya