Sabalenka facing her demons on grass, Alexandrova in her own backyard

Aryna Sabalenka arrives in Berlin carrying an emotional burden rarely seen for a world number one. Her defeat at Roland-Garros against Shnaider, after leading 6-3, 4-1 before losing ten games in a row, shook her deeply. She has publicly admitted this herself. She comes into 2026 without a single match on grass, on a surface that has never given her a title and where she has never gone past the semifinals in Berlin despite several appearances. Her grass-specific metrics confirm this vulnerability: she holds serve only 75% of the time on this surface, breaks just 35.6% of the time and saves 55.7% of break points, numbers well below what she produces elsewhere.

Ekaterina Alexandrova is going through a difficult season, but here she returns to her favorite surface. Two WTA titles on grass, 81.1% of service games held on this surface over the last 52 weeks, 63% of break points saved and a return conversion rate of 50.8% compared to 35.6% for Sabalenka. She beat the Belarusian 7-5, 6-0 in the Rosmalen 2022 final and knows perfectly well the recipe to unsettle her on grass. A match in her legs against Potapova has given her confidence back.