At the end of a turbulent year in 2025, Elena Rybakina is crowned tennis world champion. At the WTA finals she beat the two best players in the world and impressively indicated in the final against Aryna Sabalenka that 2026 would be all about her.
And another one. The 516th ace this year. Record. The thirteenth in this final. Aryna Sabalenka was desperate. She had her chances. Two set points in the second set with the score at 5:4. But Elena Rybakina was able to rely on her serve at any point in the final.
This week’s best player from Riyadh won the tournament in stunning fashion. After her match point, a return error by Sabalenka, Rybakina turned to her team, smiled shyly and clenched her left hand into a fist. The cheering was a reflection of their movements on the pitch in the hour and three quarters before and is best described in one word: unremarkable.
The game of the 26-year-old, who was born in Moscow but has been playing for Kazakhstan since 2018, is characterized by radical simplicity. A very good serve, extremely powerful on the forehand and backhand, no frills too much. Everything like from the textbook.
Andrea Petkovic, an expert at broadcaster Sky, is also impressed by Rybakina’s game: “She has such good groundstrokes. Her game is so efficient and her power transfer happens with so little effort that you have the feeling that she can maintain this level for a very long time, even if she is not the most agile of all.”
Turbulent season for Rybakina
The title at the WTA Finals was the conclusion of a remarkable final spurt to the Kazakh season after a very turbulent year. Rybakina separated from her coach Stefano Vukov after the US Open 2024 and announced at last year’s WTA finals that she would hire none other than Goran Ivanisevic for 2025. Since his time together with Novak Djokovic, Ivanisevic has been considered a very good coach and accompanied the Serb to nine Grand Slam titles.
But the collaboration with Rybakina had barely begun before it was over. Shortly after the New Year, Rybakina announced that she wanted to continue working with Vukov. The problem: Vukov had been temporarily banned by the WTA. He is said to have behaved inappropriately towards Rybakina, including verbal and physical abuse, as The Athletic reported in February.
During the Australian Open, Ivanisevic sat in Rybakina’s coaching box, but had no say because Vukov, although banned, drew up training and match plans from outside. After the tournament, Ivanisevic pulled the ripcord in exasperation. In the coming months, Rybakina repeatedly stood behind Vukov in interviews and press conferences, asserting that he had done nothing wrong. After an appeal was upheld, the Croatian has been back on the pitch since August and is Rybakina’s full-time coach.
No speaker
Rybakina celebrated her greatest successes with Vukov. When they started working together, she was still outside the top 100. Her star rose in 2022 when she won Wimbledon. Six months later she was in the final of the Australian Open, in June 2023 Elena Rybakina was ranked third in the world, and the trend was unstoppable. But then came the health problems. Injuries and illnesses again and again. Not surprisingly, the big titles didn’t materialize.
Rybakina is one of the quieter and more sensitive players on the tour. Your body language on the court does not express dominance. In interviews she speaks quietly, with zero emotion on the pitch, total self-discipline. Rybakina is not a speaker, not like Aryna Sabalenka.
She doesn’t attract the public’s attention like Iga Swiatek and doesn’t express herself as eloquently as Coco Gauff. Rybakina is world class without being a global star. Significantly: After she won Wimbledon, she was still scheduled to play on the outside courts at the next tournaments.
Rybakina has her nerves under control
So what has happened since her longtime coach returned? According to Andrea Petkovic, not much at all: “It helps her that she has him at her side as a lightning rod. It helps her because she’s an introverted, controlled type. If she can release a little bit of that inner tension. And I think she lost a lot of matches because of her nerves, not because of her game.”
Nobody knows how 2026 will go for Rybakina. But she seems to have established herself among the world leaders again. Andrea Petkovic again: “Now they seem to have found each other and since he’s been at their side, their game has become much more stable.”
If she can play with this calm in 2026, she will be named as one of the favorites at every tournament.