Elena Rybakina

Leading female tennis player from Kazakhstan

Elena Rybakina has won eight titles in her career. Her biggest title was the 2022 Wimbledon Women's Title.

In June 2023, Elena Rybakina reached her highest ranking of No. 3. As of October 15, 2024, she is ranked 5th in the world. She also qualified for the WTA Finals 2024 on this date. She has now confimed to compete and will play against Jasmine Paolini in her first match since August 2024.

Elena Rybakina competing at the US Open 2023

Latest Title News - How many has Rybakina won? (8)

• 2019 Bucharest Open
  
• 2020 Hobart Open
• 2022 Wimbledon Grand Slam
• 2023 Indian Wells + Italian Open
• 2024 Brisbane International Final: match report 
• 2024 Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open Final: match report 
• 2024 Stuttgart Open Final: match report

What is her most recent result?

Her latest result is a win in Round 1 of the US Open 2024 against Destanee Aiava on August 26th, 2024. She won the match 6-1, 7-6 (7-1). She withdrew from Round 2 due to illness. She was supposed to play Jessika Ponchet.

Who is Elena Rybakina?

Birthday: June 17, 1999

Birthplace: Moscow

Nationality: Kazakh

Height: 1.84m / 6′ 1″

She turned Pro in 2016

Personal life: Elena Rybakina has one sister Anna, and apparently no husband or boyfriend.

All statistics and data of Elena Rybakina

WTA article: Getting to know Elena Rybakina

Instagram of the Kazakhstani Athlete (@lenarybakina)

Elena Rybakina (unofficial) Facebook FanPage 

What is Rybakina's style of play?

Rybakina's style is powerful serving, strong right-handed hits, and a calm demeanor both on and off the court. In 2024 she is showing more and more a tendency to keep all points short. This might be caused by her health. She didn't play between Wimbledon and Cincinnati hence missing the Olympics 2024 in Paris due to illness.  

Three remarkable career moments

In the rankings, she temporarily lost 3rd to Coco Gauff, but regained it after winning Brisbane 2024. In the Australian Open she lost to Anna Blinkova. They played in that game the longest tie-break in Grand Slam history. Blinkova won it 22-20 and went through to R3. In 2024 Elena Rybakina already won 2 WTA 500 titles including Abu Dhabi. She lost the final of the Qatar Open in Doha to Iga Swiatek one week later playing her ninth match in ten days. In Stuttgart she beat Swiatek in the semis to win against Marta Kostyuk in the final. In the process, she pocketed a Porsche that she gave to her coach as she doesn't have a driver's license of her own. In the Madrid Open her streak of winning matches on clay came to an end against Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinal.
In August 2024 she surprisingly announced to split with her long-life coach Stefan Vukov. The announcement was made just a few days before the start of the US Open.

Elena Rybakina at the Madrid Open 2024

How did she get to the top of world tennis?

Rybakina was born in Moscow, Russia on June 17, 1999. She represented Russia until 2018, but then started representing Kazakhstan when she entered the top 200 in the world rankings.

As a junior, Rybakina impressed, rising as high as number three in the world rankings and reaching two Grand Slam semi-finals.

Elena Rybakina never had tennis training when she was young, which is quite remarkable. Her parents were always convinced that school needed to come first.

Only after becoming a pro at 17 years old, her individual training sessions started! This probably makes her the player with the highest margin of progress of all professional WTA players.  She stayed hidden from the Russian Tennis Federation, so it was easy for her to decide to switch to Kazakhstan.

Rybakina made her debut on the WTA Tour at the Kremlin Cup in October 2017. However, Irina-Camelia Begu defeated her in the first round.

Rybakina’s senior Grand Slam debut would come at the 2019 French Open. She lost in the first round to Kateřina Siniaková with a score of 6-7, 1-6 after going through the qualifying process.

Her first WTA Tour title came a few months later at the Bucharest Open. After upsetting second seed Viktória Kužmová during her run, Rybakina would defeat Patricia Maria Țig in the final.

Rybakina would have a stand-out year in 2020. She reached five finals. She won the Hobart International. She entered the top 20 in the world rankings for the first time in her career.

Rybakina would reach the first Grand Slam quarter-final of her career at the 2021 French Open as she defeated Serena Williams in straight sets to reach the last eight before falling to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in a three-set thriller.

At the Tokyo Olympics, Rybakina lost out in the bronze medal match to Elina Svitolina. She rose into the world’s top 15 for the first time, becoming the first Kazakhstani to do so.

What was her career defining moment?

In 2022, Rybakina’s career-defining moment came at the Wimbledon Championships. Straight-set wins over Coco Vandeweghe, Bianca Andreescu, Zheng Qinwen and Petra Martić saw Rybakina into the last eight. From there a hard-fought, three-set win over Ajla Tomljanović was followed by a 6-3, 6-3 victory over former Wimbledon winner Simona Halep in the semi-finals? She then beat Ons Jabeur in the final coming from a set down.

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After winning the Wimbleodn title she walked off the court smiling, shook hands with Jabeur, shortly applauded the crowd, waved the racket and sat down calmly  on the chair. This made BBC LIVE commentator John McEnroe jokingly say "Didn't even react when she WON Wimbledon!" Rybakina herself told later that her main thought afterwards was 'feeling tired and happy that a tough match against amazing opponent (Jabeur) was finished". In that press conference she showed her down to earth style telling the press room she never thought of playing tennis for money, but eventually the emotions became too much when asked about her parents, with one fan reacting "the mixture of both sweet sentiments of her parents and her ability to add humor into her outpour of emotions was just amazing".

Also read from journalist Tumaini Carayol: The Amazing rise of Rybakina - The Guardian, published on July 3, 2023

Rybakina's 2023 Season

Elena Rybakina continued her impressive form in 2023, reaching the final of the Australian Open, defeating world number one Iga Swiatek in the process before losing out to Aryna Sabalenka in the final despite winning the first set.

Rybakina’s first WTA 1000 title came at the 2023 Indian Wells championship where she again defeated world number one Iga Swiatek in straight sets to reach the final before this time avenging her Australian Open loss by defeating Aryna Sabalenka in straight sets to also win the title. A win in Rome later on against Kalinina helped her break into the Top 5. After that Italian win she struggled in the next 2 tournaments loosing to Sorribes Tormo in the third round (walkover from the Spaniard) and to Donna Vekic in Berlin. On 12 June 2023, she achieved her career-high ranking of world No. 3.
Wimbledon 2023 saw her winning against Rogers, Cornet, Boulter, and Haddad-Maia before falling to Ons Jabeur in the quarter-finals. In August 2023 she lost the Montreal semi-final to Samsonova to which she also lost Beijing's semi-final 2 months later. By that time she had already stated she was struggling with fatigue and some weird WTA scheduling. In between she was defeated by Romanian Cirstea at the US Open 2023 in the third round.
At the end of the year she fell to Aryna Sabalenka in the Masters Cup 2023 after having lost to Iga Swiatek, but having booked a win versus Greek Maria Sakkari.

How's Elena Rybakina 2024 season going?

Rybakina started the season firing on all cylinders. She won Brisbane International against Sabalenka and only lost one service game in the entire Brisbane International tournament. Quickly she added Abu Dhabi to her list of wins.
In April she won her first outing of the season on clay beating Marta Kostyuk in the final of the Stuttgart Open. The Madrid Open saw her beat Bronzetti, Sherif, Bejlek, and Putintseva. In the semifinal Rybakina lost to Aryna Sabalenka in 3 sets.

In Wimbledon Rybakina lost to Krejcikova. After a month absence and witdrawing from the Olympics for Kazakhstan due to illness, she again lost to a player outside the top-20 as she was defeated in Cincinnati by Canadian Leylah Fernandez in 3 sets.

She qualified for the US Open 2024 second round beating Aiava in R1. She withdrew 2 days later from the US Open scheduled to face Jessika Ponchet.

We can conclude that overall her 2024 season has been tainted by withdrawals the past few months. A strong performance at the WTA Finals 2024 could restore hope for her fans.

Roland Garros appearance of Elena Rybakina in 2024

Who are Rybakina's coaches?

Elena Rybakina’s main coach has almost always been Stefano Vukov. He is a former Croatian tennis player who played in various ITF Men’s World Tennis events as well as the ITF Futures Tour. Vukov is known for his analytic prowess. He was considered being instrumental in the development of Rybakina’s game. They began their professional partnership at the beginning of 2019 and have been working together until August 23, 2024.
Lovro Zovko might become her new head coach, as he previously assisted her at the 2024 Qatar Open and notably appeared at the 2024 Cincinnati Open in August. At the US Open she was seen training with Yuri Schukin, the lead coach of the Kazakhstan Davis Cup team, pointing to a temporary solution.

What are her approvals?

Yonex has sponsored Rybakina for clothing and shoes since the 2023 French Open. She had previously been endorsed by Adidas from the start of 2020, and by Nike. She uses a Yonex VCore 100 racket. On 24 January 2023, Rybakina began to cooperate with the Kazakhstan Bank RBK. She also has a sponsorship agreement with Red Bull.

In March 2023, Rybakina donated 35 million Kazakstani tenge to rising female tennis players in Kazakhstan.