Inside Aryna Sabalenka: What It Takes to Be World No. 1 | IM8 Presents

Oh, come on, that's obvious. It's a tiger. That would be a tiger, that's for sure. Hunting, searching, fighting. I feel like that's why I got here, where I am right now, because I was always the one that was working hard, always on court, trying to become a better player. I think that's what brought me here. I remember that she was the one who was, like, fighting to the last point more than anyone else. And when I joined her, like, as a hitting partner, I remember those matches where she was, like, not on the level where she is right now, but she was still, like, fighting with the top 10 players. She never, like, feeling that she does not belong there, so she was always fighting to the end. She was always showing lots of emotions, and I would say she was the one who was always wanted, wanted to win. I know Irina since very young age. She was, like, I think 12 or 13 years old, and I've seen the girl who's been hitting ball very hard on the court, and I was, like, very curious, like, how far she can go. Who she was is the most powerful thing, but she needed the tools to learn how to, I guess, harness that energy, that pressure. The difference with Irina is that when she sees that pressure nowadays, especially, she chases that pressure, right? She seeks that pressure. She realizes that that's her power that others don't seek, because everyone else, it's affecting them in a negative way, right? Where us, it's, like, we love this thing. I can know my biggest goal is, first of all, put my family name in the history, and secondly, to be inspiration for kids, and I feel like I cannot let those kids who get inspired by me down, so that's what drives me. She's a different breed. She's a different animal to start with, but one thing that comes to mind that I was driven by is her commitment, her obsession to win and do anything to reach that goal. Although this is her life, day in, day out, she doesn't feel like she has to hide any part of herself, and I think that really helps her to just give her character, just be the best person that she can be. Hurts. We go through managing our environment, which has two layers, her external environment and her internal environment. The external environment has a lot to do with the people around us, so not just, like, our working environment, more so about who's around us, who has access, when, how, and what, you know, directly, but also that peripheral side, so what other activities she's doing, so we gotta manage a lot of these things. The internal environment's probably the biggest part that helps us perform our best on a more day-to-day basis, so that's gonna be our sleep, the content that she's consuming online, the conversations she's having, and one of the biggest things would be her nutrition, so this is a big part where IMA comes into play, so making sure that we, every day, are consistent with covering our bases, that we're fueling our internal environment the way we need to to manage our energy best. The last one is managing emotions, which, you know, at the end of the day, if we have the right environment and she's managing energy really well, you know, fueling her body properly, then managing her emotions overall makes it a lot easier. I feel like my health is, like, on, my health, which is, like, recovery, my, like, daily nutritions and everything, I think it's on the top, on the top of the list, and then, of course, it's, like, training, like, my physical ability, mental ability, as well. You got it, grandpa. Ooh, ooh! Well, yeah, we do a lot of things together with my team, and one of that thing is we go for Iron Maid. We drink Iron Maid, and if we stay all together in one house, it's so funny because it's, like, you go to the kitchen, and you see everyone making the Iron Maid. I should record it one day because it looks pretty funny, but, yeah, this is our, one of our routine. We do mix these goodies together. When you see Irina playing on the tennis court, it's one Irina. I would call it Irina the tiger because who's always fighting, always aggressive, but once she's stepping out of the court, and she's just in a normal human life, she's a kind person. She's always investing in herself. She's built a big team around her. I think that she have, like, a huge team and one of the biggest team on tour, but this is kind of an investment, and that's her mentality. For her, she's really committing to what she wants to achieve, and she's making a commitment to herself that to get through any challenge that she's facing, she has to look in the mirror, essentially. She has to take some ownership and responsibility. She realized through a lot of our conversations and experiences we had for probably a year or two leading up to that moment was about if you have something that you have difficult in front of you, the only way you're gonna get through is to go through it, so it really was a big shift to her of asking that question, changing the question of why me or how do I avoid this to, like, well, what do I need to get through this, and she realized that she was externalizing all these things, like, giving that responsibility to everybody else, and for her to get to that next level required her to take ownership of that, to really sit back and look at herself a little bit deeper and become a little more vulnerable, and as soon as she started doing that, that's when a lot of things changed, but I would say the key thing that allowed that to happen is that she started to have a lot more trust in her environment, meaning the people around her, us, the team. The more she realized that she could rely on us, that we were gonna be that steady, stable sort of influence for her, that she could actually take that door and open it, I suppose you could say, so that was really the biggest part there, that that was like a real transition moment for her. I think nowadays I'm really good with, like, balancing and still doing things that I love, and I just found the perfect balance for that, to balance what I mean is, like, on-court and off-court life, but I feel like growing up and, like, getting on top, I sacrificed a lot of time with my friends, time with my family, just time that I could spend for myself and to do things that are fun, and maybe even, like, party with friends. I skipped that part, I never had it. I was practicing all day long, basically, but nowadays I just found the perfect balance how to still do it, but maybe not that much, but still find the time, how to spend time with friends, how to have fun, how to go out, and spend time with the family, of course. I believe that's why she's so successful on-court, because she actually holds the same values and she's gonna do everything she can to achieve whatever, either if it's on-court or off-court or in a relationship or towards her family. So it's basically, I don't think, to that level, you can have two completely different personalities or targets between on-court and off-court. What I admire about Irina is that she's the same as she is off-court and on-court. She's pretty honest, and this is great because when you start working with anyone, first what you're looking for is the human and then the athlete. So as soon as I recognize what she's off-court, it's much easier to work with her. So, and I think the first in my head is that she's pretty honest. She can be really straightforward. Not maybe always nice, but it's really helpful. You know, it's actually a long process. It's not that easy thing that you just play there and you're like, oh, this is what I'm gonna keep telling myself. I think it's a combination of everything, like wellness, your health, your physical abilities, your mental health, and we do a lot of things. Like I may help Irina a little bit, but it helps a lot because if you actually check my recovery score during, for example, Miami Open final week, it's like 97, 98, never been that way before, and my recovery is better. And like when I'm staying there in them, like really important moment, I just know that we did everything we could. I am stronger than ever. I am healthier than ever. Mentally, I'm also stronger than ever. We did like huge work that lead up to that moment. And I just know in that moment that I'm ready. I'm ready to take it. I'm ready to go for it. I'm ready to stay aggressive. And especially after like several tough losses, I feel like, okay, I cannot let myself, my team down. Training Irina Sabalenka is exciting. Coaching Irina Sabalenka is a privilege. Irina Sabalenka is a kind person. Irina Sabalenka is a sporting icon. Irina Sabalenka is a warrior. Irina Sabalenka is determined. And she's the queen. That's good.