Aryna Sabalenka was fiercely critical of herself after suffering a one-sided defeat at the WTA Finals. The world No. 2 led Mirra Andreeva 4-1 in their second group stage match on Wednesday before she suffered a huge collapse, losing the last 11 games in a row as Andreeva clinched a statement 6-4 6-0 victory. The teenager won 45 of the last 55 points as Sabalenka fell apart on the court. Afterwards, the 28-year-old didn’t mince her words.

Asked what she’d be telling herself if she was her own coach, the four-time Grand Slam champion jokingly replied: “What a f***ing loser.” After laughing it off, Sabalenka assessed what she’d have to do moving into her last match of the round-robin stage, though she clearly wasn’t pleased.

Right now for the next matches? Just keep going, you’re doing okay. If things didn’t go well today, it doesn’t mean that tomorrow it’s going to be the same, and I’m a hard worker, and I know that I can push through whatever.”

Sabalenka still has a chance to get out of the group stage and reach the semi-finals, as she won her opening match against Karolina Muchova two days earlier. But there’s work to do if she wants to beat Elina Svitolina on Friday to move into the last four.

After blowing her early lead and failing to win a single game from 4-1 up, Sabalenka conceded that Andreeva was just too good. “She definitely played great tennis. For now, what can I say? Bravo,” she said.

“Well, the good thing is that I still have a chance to qualify. I’ll need some time to recover after. I don’t even know how many games in a row I lost.”

Andreeva, meanwhile, is already into the semi-finals after impressing on her singles debut at the WTA Finals. The 19-year-old also beat Svitolina 6-4 6-0 earlier this week. This was Andreeva’s first meeting against Sabalenka since she beat the world No. 2 in the 2025 Indian Wells final.

“I was angry. I was not very happy with how things went. Obviously she played well. I mean, she hit a lot of winners. I was not happy with how I lost my serve with the double fault on break point. I was just feeling that anger building up inside of me,” Andreeva said after going down an early break.

“But it was a good thing that I was serving, because I kind of was able to turn that anger into trying to serve faster. To let it out with serving. And then after, I felt better and I was able to play better on the return and, just like that, things went my way.