[Music] in a deeply personal revelation world number two tennis star Arina sabalenka has opened up about the emotional turmoil she experienced following the tragic death of her ex-boyfriend former NHL player Constantine CS off months after cof's fatal fall from a Miami Hotel balcony in March sabalenka shared how she coped with the loss and the toll it took on her mental health in an exclusive interview with the guardian sabalenka reflected on the difficult period revealing that she didn't allow herself the necessary time to grieve instead she threw herself into tennis A coping mechanism she had used before when dealing with the loss of her father in 2019 sabalenka who was spotted back on the practice court just a day after cof's death admitted that this approach ultimately took a heavy toll on her well-being losing my father was incredibly tough and tennis was my Escape she explained so when I lost Constantine I thought the best thing to do was to keep going to separate my personal pain from my professional life but in the end it really affected my mental health reflecting on her decision sabalenka confessed that she now believes taking a step back to process her emotions would have been a wiser Choice the better decision would have been to recharge to start over but I didn't do that and I paid the price still I'm grateful for tennis it's helped me get stronger through everything the 26-year-old has been forced to step away from the court recently due to a shoulder injury that prevented her from playing at Wimbledon along with illnesses that kept her from the French Open and the Italian Open she now acknowledges that this time away from the game was something she deeply needed to recover both physically and mentally as Sabal Lenka prepares for the upcoming US Open She carries with her the lessons learned from from these difficult experiences hoping to emerge stronger than ever