Elena Rybakina throws up the ball, but the wind has a mind of its own. Elena smiles. The crowd cheers for her & tries to give her support. Trying to make the best of a tough situation, but she hits a double fault. These conditions are dreadful.
(VIDEO) Elena Rybakina suffers tennis ball mishap as "dreadful" conditions continue at 2023 WTA Finals
WTAFriday, 03 November 2023 at 15:04
Elena Rybakina suffered a mishap with a tennis ball while attempting to serve in her match at the 2023 WTA Finals in Cancun, re-igniting complaints about the venue's "dreadful" conditions.
The World No. 4 was nearing the end of the first set in her match against Aryna Sabalenka at the 2023 WTA Finals when the incident occurred. Rybakina was trailing 1-5 but was attempting to at least make her opponent serve for the set as she aimed to avoid a triple break.
However, while leading 30-15 in the game, the Kazakhstani player's serve was de-railed by the wind, forcing her to start the point again. While Rybakina was able to laugh it off in the moment, many fans were quick to point out how this was another example of the difficult conditions in which the athletes are playing.
Read also
Tough court conditions continue
Cancun was announced as the location for the WTA Finals in September, after which the WTA announced that it would spend $6 million on building a new stadium for the prestigious season-ending championships.
However, problems became clear when players started arriving at the venue only to find that construction work was still ongoing, and they were ultimately unable to access the Estadio Paradisus until the day before the tournament began.
Once the group stage got underway, players were vocal about the difficulty of dealing with the court conditions. Indeed, Rybakina put the drop in quality at the event down to players attempting to adjust to the courts.
"As I said, I think it’s far from being the best tennis. I feel like the quality from all of us is not the greatest. You can see it by the unforced errors. Some players are struggling more. Some are maybe adjusting a bit better … I think the conditions are tough.
"I don’t feel like I can show everything I have on the court. You’re kind of limited with the things you can do with such conditions. I feel like if you have a tight game on your serve, you can be stressed with a rally when you don’t know how the ball is going to bounce. You don’t know what to expect. Not much is under your control," she said.
Following the tennis ball mishap, Rybakina hit a double fault but managed to hold. Although she lost the opener 6-2, she was leading 5-3 in the second set when the match was suspended due to rain, with play scheduled to resume later today.
claps 0visitors 3791
Just In
Popular News
Latest Comments
- Why do you even publish this TwatCaster's PATHETIC stunt for attention? There's plenty of reasons why imbeciles like him are 'talking' and people like Iga Swiatek are 'walking the walk'. Tennisuptodate should be above this tripe.
mandoist16-12-2024 - If and when Political Correctness and gullible hearts over-rule BIOLOGY, the Human world begins its already seeming decline.mandoist15-12-2024
- The new generation has arrived and these guys need to do it with the left overs.
AceOfBase13-12-2024 - Every young, inexperiend CEO has "better" ideas (and friends to hire).mandoist12-12-2024
- What a load of nonsense. Emotional stress definitely didn’t cause her wrist or ankle injuries.Lyca10-12-2024
- Taylor Fritz 🎾 – the surprising third for many. 🎄 A great Christmas tree quiz question! 🎅✨MrAndreeva10-12-2024
- Simona Halep taking the axe out 🪓😮💨MrAndreeva08-12-2024
- ITIA is literally a Secret Organization. Way past time for a neutral entity to oversee, if not guide, these Elitists within ITIA whom enjoy their ability to keep their "investigations" in a business as usual format behind closed doors!!mandoist08-12-2024
- Poor Emma has 3 problems I can see from the peanut gallery: 1. She has not shown the comittment it takes; tennis has not been her priority. 2. Her body seems to fail. Frailty is not an athlete's friend. 3. She is throwing everything at the wall to keep her sponsors.mandoist07-12-2024
- As for ITIA -- who, or what entity, oversees this untrustworthy organization?? Too many recent cases of suspensions over tests proving minimal stats at best. Neither Iga nor Simona showed even a hint at prolonged use. Sinner, we don't know because the secrecy was extreme. Now we find ITIA flat-out LIED about speaking directly with the manufacturer of the drug in question associated with Iga. Are we to believe ITIA can be trusted? Not according to the past few years of questionable corporate conduct. ITIA can no longer be trusted to fairly regulate nor investigate itself... so who or what will??mandoist06-12-2024
