“I was thinking a lot on my serve,” she said. “I tried to control everything, and that’s not how it works. I have muscle memory, and I just have to trust myself, and that’s what I did in the middle of the second set.”
But the problem quickly resurfaced against Wang, and she had to pull off a greater escape: 19 double faults is the equivalent of giving away nearly five service games.
“There’s just so much overthinking going on,” said Roger Rasheed, a veteran Australian coach who has worked with Lleyton Hewitt, Grigor Dimitrov and Gaël Monfils. “She is technically fine, but the moment she misses her first serve, she is already in trouble as the mind is controlling her in a negative way.”
The Australian Open has certainly seen worse in the second round from a star. In 1999, Anna Kournikova, a 17-year-old Russian who was seeded No. 12, served 31 double faults against Miho Saeki of Japan.
“I’m really frustrated about it, like everybody who’s watching,” Sabalenka said. “When I practice, I have no problem, but when I come to the line, something happens. I’m just going to have to fight through it.”
She finished the match by putting a towel over her head in her chair — not the usual Kournikova approach — but she had won in three high-wire sets.