Elena Rybakina recently won a big trophy on clay proving to everybody that she can win trophies on the surface and she believes that she can be a threat on all courts.
Rybakina is a fairly young tennis player yet the Kazakh player has already been able to achieve much. She's won big trophies before but this year's it's a big step forward with a consistently high level making her a threat to win trophies weekly. Wimbledon was won last year proving that she can win on grass. Hard courts were never a question and the Australian Open final just proved that.
Winning in Rome proved that she can now win on all courts and despite claims that her run was lucky, she still went out there and beat good players.
All court threat
Winning in Rome is a major confidence booster for Rybakina who is now fully certain that she can be good on all surfaces. Winning such a big trophy ahead of Roland Garros is certainly very convenient as well:
“On clay I think I won my first WTA, so since then I knew that I can play good on clay also. Just I need to prepare differently. Maybe I need more time for the preparation. And also experience for the past few years. Overall I think that I'm improving a lot physically, and also I
played a lot of matches this year. No matter the surface, I feel like
it's anyway giving me confidence.”
Disregarding the rankings
The win in Rome also saw her secure her career-high in terms of rankings but it's not something she thinks about a lot. She's been playing good tennis for a year now and that's the main focus:
“I don't think about the rankings so much. Of course it's nice to see
the progress also with the ranking, but I have been playing well I
think last year also, and now I'm just getting a bit more consistent,
doing good job with the team. I just want to keep on going like this,
and we see how far I can go this year:"