Arina Sobolenko reached the third round of Wimbledon. What is known, the biography of the athlete

Belarusian tennis player Arina Sobolenko defeated Czech Republic's Maria Bouzkova in the second round of Wimbledon. Her next opponent will be British Emma Raducanu. Izvestia tells about the course of the match and shares the biography of the first racket of the world.

Arina Sobolenko at Wimbledon 2025

Belarusian tennis player Arina Sobolenko has reached the third round of Wimbledon 2025. In the second round match, she defeated Czech athlete Maria Bozkova. The game lasted 1 hour 37 minutes and ended with a score 7:6 (7:4), 6:4. During this time, Sobolenko made five aces, converted two break points out of four and made three double faults. Her opponent completed two straight serves, made the only break point of the match and did not make a single double mistake.

At the moment, Sobolenko remains the only one of the top 5 players to reach the third round of Wimbledon. Earlier, American Corey Gauff (2nd place in the ranking of the Women's Tennis Association, WTA), her compatriot Jessica Pegula (3rd place in the WTA ranking) and Chinese Zheng Qingwen (5th place in the WTA ranking) left the tournament in the first round. The fourth racket of the world, Italian athlete Yasmin Paolini, was eliminated in the second round.

The last time a similar situation developed at Wimbledon was in 2018. Then Romanian tennis player Simona Halep was the only player from the top 5 who managed to overcome the second round of the tournament.

Herbal mood: what to expect from the Russians at Wimbledon

Daniil Medvedev is able to reach the semifinals, Mirra Andreeva is able to improve last year's result.

At the same time, unexpected losses are observed not only in the women's, but also in the men's tournament bracket. In the first round, four players ranked in the top ten of the ATP were eliminated from the competition at once: German Alexander Zverev (3rd place), Italian Lorenzo Musetti (7th place), Dane Holger Rune (8th place) and Russian Daniil Medvedev (9th place).

Sobolenko herself admitted that the sensations of the current tournament upset her.

"It's sad to see so many surprises at Wimbledon. Moreover, this happens in both the women's and men's grids," the Punto de Break edition quotes the athlete as saying.

The Belarusian tennis player added that now she is trying to concentrate on her game and not look at the standings, as this "only adds to nerves, doubts and other things."

Arina Sobolenko — biography, the beginning of her career

Arina Sobolenko was born in Minsk in 1998. Her father, Sergei Sobolenko, played hockey in his youth, but was forced to abandon his career as a professional player after a car accident. It was he who brought six-year-old Arina to the tennis section.

It took a while for the future world number one to fall in love with tennis. In the third year of classes, she got bored with training, but the girl did not dare to give up what she had started, fearing to disappoint her father. After a few years, hard work paid off in full with outstanding victories.

Yelena Vergeenko became Sobolenko's first coach. The mentor immediately saw in the girl the makings of a professional tennis player: endurance, strength and an unstoppable desire to win. However, the explosive nature of the ward made it difficult to work together, and constant conflicts with the coach had a bad effect on the entire group.

"Talking to Sharapova helped me a lot"

The first racket of Russia Mirra Andreeva — about the secret of her name, role models and a possible mix with Medvedev at the US Open

"I kicked her out of training once, the second time… I make a remark to her, and she responds with ten words. The team heard it, and it was unpleasant for me, too," Vergeenko said.

As a result, when Arina turned 11, the coach asked the athlete's parents to find her another mentor.

Despite her bright talent, Sobolenko did not achieve outstanding success at the children's level. At the start of her career, she won only five competitions under the auspices of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) — twice in singles and three times in doubles. By 2015, the athlete was ranked 225th in the ITF rankings, which is why she could not participate in the selection for Grand Slam tournaments.

Arina Sobolenko — career, achievements

After moving to the adult level, Sobolenko's career went up sharply. Under the guidance of coach Vladimir Perko, she won her first ITF adult titles. In 2016, the athlete began working with coach Khalil Ibragimov, thanks to whom she was able to significantly improve her results. During this period, she won two tournaments in Japan and China, and also played for the national team of Belarus at the Fed Cup.

In 2017, Sobolenko participated in the qualifying for the Grand Slam tournaments — the Australian Open and Roland Garros. Despite the defeat, she finished the year as an athlete from the WTA top 100. At the tournament in Tianjin, she reached the final, but lost to Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova.

Although working with Ibragimov brought good results, Sobolenko decided to change her coach. In 2018, she continued training under Dmitry Tursunov. In August of the same year, the athlete won her first WTA title at a tournament in New Haven. By the end of the season, her list of awards was expanded with two more titles, and the tennis player rose to 11th place in the WTA rankings. For this, she was awarded the title of "Newcomer of the Year".

In 2019, Sobolenko won her first Grand Slam doubles title by winning the US Open with Belgian Elise Mertens. The following year, due to disagreements with the coach, the athlete stopped working with Tursunov and began working with Dieter Kindleman. At the end of the season, she became one of the top ten best players in the world. Later, Anton Dubrov became her mentor.

In total, between 2019 and 2021, Sobolenko won eight WTA singles titles and several more in doubles. The year 2022 turned out to be less successful for the athlete, she failed to win a single tournament.

Paris draw: Medvedev faces tough opponents at Roland Garros

Four Russians and 12 Russians recognized the first opponents at the dirt major in the French capital

However, at the beginning of 2023, the tennis player compensated for all last year's failures. She opened the season with a victory at the Adelaide tournament and her first personal Grand Slam title — in the final of the Australian Open she beat the champion of Wimbledon 2022 Elena Rybakina, representing Kazakhstan. The tennis player dedicated her victory to her father, who died in 2019. After that, Sobolenko reached the final of the US Open, which allowed her to take first place in the WTA rankings.

The athlete won her second Australian Open title in 2024. At the same time, she went through the entire tournament without losing a single set.

Today, Sobolenko is the leader of the WTA rankings. She has 20 singles titles to her credit.

Arina Sobolenko — personal life

Arina Sobolenko has never been married, but there was a place for vivid novels in her life. She dated Belarusian hockey player Matvey Bozhko for a while, but their relationship proved short-lived.

Later, the athlete was credited with an affair with coach Dmitry Tursunov. The reason for such speculation was the emotional posts that the mentor and the ward exchanged on social networks. At the same time, both Sobolenko and Tursunov have repeatedly denied having any romantic feelings for each other.

In 2020, Yulia, the wife of former Belarusian hockey player Konstantin Koltsov and the mother of three children of the athlete, published a post on her social networks with a message about the divorce, hinting at the same time that the marriage broke up because of a certain woman.

"An appeal to all the girls who are hanging on other people's husbands with babies in the family! It's despicable!" she wrote.

In the photo, the woman noted Sobolenko. After the publication, the athlete was criticized by users. Even the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, allegedly commented on the situation. During a visit to the testing ground of the United Institute of Mechanical Engineering of the National Academy of Sciences, he spoke out against adultery, which many regarded as a rebuke to Sobolenko and Koltsov.

Koltsov himself appealed to his followers on social networks with a request to leave the tennis player alone, who, according to him, had nothing to do with the divorce.

But already in 2021, the former hockey player began to be noticed at Sobolenko's matches, and the athletes' social networks were filled with shared photos. Over time, sports stars stopped hiding their relationship. In 2022, the tennis player posted a video in which she discussed with her lover the possibility of having a child together. To the question "When is the maternity leave?" the hockey player succinctly replied "Soon."

However, Sobolenko and Koltsov's romance ended tragically. In 2024, the hockey player flew to Miami to support his beloved at the upcoming Masters and WTA tournaments, and died suddenly. He was 42 years old at the time of his death.