Paula Badosa, Aryna Sabalenka preview “Sabadosa” scrimmage at Roland Garros

For the third time in 2024, Aryna Sabalenka will take on her favorite tennis player.

“I love her so much,” the No. 2 seed of Paula Badosa, her next opponent at Roland Garros. “I love to see her play, and she's really a great fighter, so it's always great matches.”

Sabalenka has had to clarify her on-the-record aversion to watching women’s tennis, but Badosa landed the best retort when asked about her “tour soulmate” following a thrilling first-round win over No. 29 seed Katie Boulter.

“I’m pretty sure she watches WTA because she watches me,” she reportedly joked in her Spanish-language press conference.

“She has a big personality, good girl, always bringing this good energy, even on court,” Badosa added after surviving Yulia Putintseva on Thursday. “So, you can see a very active, very intense player.”

Badosa has twice seen that intensity firsthand this season: at the Miami Open, where Sabalenka was playing her first match since learning that ex-partner Konstantin Koltsov had taken his own life, and later on clay at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, where Badosa nearly got the upper hand before suffering an acute leg injury in the third set.

Of course, sharing the court with [Aryna] after all these results she's doing and all this is a pleasure, because for me, you know, this past year hasn't been easy. So, playing these kind of matches, it makes it all worth it, you know. Paula Badosa

“I think the last time it finished in a sad way, so I learned a lot from that match also,” said Badosa, who has been struggling with chronic back issues for the past 18 months. “I think it was a very good one from both sides. I know what I'm going to find from her side Saturday. I know how I have to play against her. So, yeah, I think it's going to be fun.”

“It's always tough to play your friend, your really best friend on tour, I would say,” Sabalenka agreed after defeating Moyuka Uchijima in her second round. “It's always tough, but we know how to manage that. We know how to separate court and life. So, it's always great battle, great fight against her. I always enjoy playing against her. So we kind of, like…we're good to separate things.”

“Sabadosa” famously first formed during the Tie Break Tens event ahead of the 2022 BNP Paribas Open. The outgoing duo were on the doubles court in Miami two weeks later and have been sharing their off-court exploits on social media ever since.

Though the friendship took Sabalenka by surprise, the two-time Australian Open champion sees the relationship as a testament to her maturation as both person and competitor.

“I would say at the beginning I was so closed, and I thought that this is the way everything is,” she explained in her post-match press conference. “Like, everyone is kind of like off and you cannot be friends with anybody. But then with time, with experience you kind of figure out stuff. You get good with each other.

“I would say that right now with the Top 10 players, we are all good with each other, and there are no big fights outside the court. Of course, on court we are opponents, but off court…we can talk, we can have fun.

“Not like we are best friends, but it's not like something, you know…” she concludes, grasping for the right word. “Tough? How to say, something crazy, like intense. Intense, exactly.”

Sabalenka has certainly kept her intensity on the court at Roland Garros and throughout the clay swing, losing only to Iga Swiatek in her last two tournaments and dropping just seven games through two rounds on the terre battue.

Badosa has had a tougher go of things, albeit against higher-caliber opponents: rallying from a set down in both matches, she reeled off the final three games of a rain-interrupted clash with Putintseva, who has twice reached the quarterfinals in Paris, to book the bestie battle with Sabalenka.

“Of course, sharing the court with [Aryna] after all these results she's doing and all this is a pleasure, because for me, you know, this past year hasn't been easy,” Badosa said. “So playing these kind of matches, it makes it all worth it, you know.”