Arina’s star lit up in the Belarusian capital in no way with a sudden bright flash. Her world fame became a natural continuation of the development of the Minsk tennis school. It is not only a long and hard work of coaches and players, but also nearly half a century of infrastructure for a very difficult sport, rightly considered expensive both in terms of equipment and training conditions. Young Belarusian talents were lucky in this respect in the days of the BSSR. Residents of Minsk are familiar with the “Republican Tennis Center” on Pobediteley Avenue. The Tennis Palace with twenty outdoor and indoor courts was built in 1978 and expanded in 2015. The origins of the success of the Belarusian champions with a racket – and there are many of them, it is enough to mention the names of Natalia Zvereva, Maxim Mirny, Victoria Azarenka – same here. Six-year-old Arina Sobolenko also started her journey here.
His first coach was Elena Vergeenko, the daughter of the famous football goalkeeper, champion of the USSR in 1982 in the Minsk “Dynamo” Mikhail Vergeenko. The initial student years of tennis were not easy – from the first days of lessons the girl began to show the desire to be the first always and everywhere. The psychology of winners is a quality strictly necessary in top-level tennis, but the young bearer of this psychology tormented the coach with stubbornness and constant objections.
As a result, six years later I had to part with a talented student, and the suffering of the first mentor was inherited by all the specialists who then had to work with Sobolenko and his volcano of passions. It is not for nothing that the nickname “tigress” stuck to Arina, the famous Russian tennis player and coach Dmitry Tursunov, who worked with her from 2018 to 2020 and did a lot to bring in the tireless Belarusian in the world tennis elite. a lot about it.
She burst into the illustrious ranks of Sobolenko’s elected officials with malice and without regard for the authorities. Until the age of eighteen, Arina was not noticed in world tennis circles – her results did not allow her to participate in junior Grand Slam tournaments, where future tennis stars traditionally produce. And already in 2017, without a textured young woman with a height of 180 centimeters, it was impossible to imagine the tennis team of Belarus, which reached the final of the Federation Cup that year with the significant help from Arina. Since then, viewers from the three major tennis continents – Europe, North America and Australia – have enjoyed the Belarusian’s majestic appearance, powerful strokes and aggressive way of playing.
The first notable successes in major tournaments went to 19-year-old Sobolenko. In October 2017, in Tianjin, China, she came close to beating Maria Sharapova, Russia’s brightest tennis star with Gomel roots, in the final. In the final set, Arina led 5:1, but managed to lose: in the world of women’s tennis, this is not so rare. Attacking failures only make great players stronger, and from the following year, 2018, the Belarusian taught the demanding tennis public to be surprised at her great successes. In singles, she finished the 2018 and 2019 seasons in 11th place and, paired with Belgian Elise Mertens in the fall of 2019, won her first Grand Slam tournament, the US Open in New York.
It was in doubles that Sobolenko, along with Mertens, became the world’s top racket for the first time in 2021 – after winning the Australian Open. Today, Arina focuses on the most prestigious singles category and stubbornly strives for the coveted first place in the world rankings of women’s tennis (only Azarenka conquered this peak among Belarusians). The approaches to triumph were visibly marked already at the end of August 2021, when it became the second racket in the world.
In March 2022, when Australian tennis star Ashleigh Barty announced her retirement from the sport at the age of 25, it looked like Sobolenko was close to achieving her desired goal. But instead, the flip side of the Belarusian’s tireless nature appeared – at some point the pitch went wrong.
Numerous double faults in matches with rivals who did not have the best ranking surprised fans, forced experts to give a lot of advice and drove Arina herself into a frenzy. The same indestructible temperament of Sobolenko helped out of the crisis: at the end of 2022, the delivery technique improved, and great successes returned.
Arina broke into the glorified ranks of the chosen ones mischievously and without regard to all sorts of authorities
And on January 28 of this year, the Belarusian tennis star became a full-fledged star in the great history of tennis. After the victory in Melbourne in the Australian Open final against Kazakh tennis player from Moscow Elena Rybakina, Arina submitted to the first Grand Slam singles tournament. Now she is again the second racquet in the world with a high chance of becoming the first in the 2023 season and sweeping the Polish Iga Sventek from the top of tennis, who sometimes plays unsteadily and is often distracted by small games. policies of an anti-Russian and anti-Belarusian nature.
Arina’s Australian triumph, as well as Russian players Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev’s long stay in the top 10 of the men’s tennis rankings, have become invaluable aid to world tennis authorities in maintaining their unique position in the world. currently allowing athletes from Belarus and Russia to play anywhere in the world, even if they are both neutral and without national flags. But after all, every fan is well aware of which country the brilliant champion Sobolenko represents, whose most important victories are yet to come.
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