What’s next for Elena Rybakina amid ongoing illnesses, injuries and coaching rumors?

It’s difficult to talk about Elena Rybakina’s year so far because it is very nuanced and requires a lot of context to properly understand the end result. If you look at the current year compared to previous years just based on the total number of wins, you won’t go far wrong. You might even be impressed by what you saw.

Rybakina finished the 2022 season with 43 wins, which is quite a lot, but also with 21 losses, which isn’t exactly a small amount to be completely honest. The following year Rybakina achieved a record of 47:17, which is of course a better record. She had more wins and fewer losses, and she’s better overall. If we also compare their results this year with those of the other years, there is only one conclusion: they were better this year than the other two years.

So far Rybakina has recorded a total of 41 wins and only 9 losses, which is a really impressive record, but the eye test and general context doesn’t make her look as impressive as she should be, because although her tennis has been very solid this year Other problems have arisen. With this record in mind, it is very likely that Rybakina will finish this year with the most wins in recent years and the fewest losses. We are assuming that at the moment, but we will see whether it will be the case at the end of the year.

They didn’t follow up this solid performance with any more as Adelaide proved to be rather short, but overall they came to Melbourne with a lot of confidence. After being in the final last year, many believed she would have a good result. That wasn’t the case, as she failed completely, losing to Anna Blinkova in a very bizarre match in which she never became her best tennis fan.

Then she faced physical problems for the first time when she also played in Dubai but withdrew due to a physical problem. Apparently it is a disease that will appear a few more times this year. As crazy as it may sound, Rybakina has struggled with a few ailments this year that aren’t even really injuries, but she seems susceptible to them.

This trend continued for much of the year as she beat Stuttgart by beating Swiatek in the final. She reached the semifinals of the Madrid Open, had to miss Rome due to illness, and then reached the quarterfinals of Roland Garros. In the summer, Rybakina struggled with even more physical problems, including minor injuries and illnesses, although she played well at Wimbledon and reached the semifinals. However, the sequence of events since then has been truly bizarre.

She missed the Olympics because of further physical problems, played poorly in Cincinnati upon her return, and then withdrew from the US Open because of further physical problems. We’re at a point where it’s not just a small thing, because it’s happened so often this year that you have to wonder what the future will hold for Rybakina.

On the one hand, her results and level were excellent and by far the third best behind Sabalenka and Swiatek, and sometimes even better than both of them, but on the other hand we have a player who has practically not been on the pitch in the last two months. She has never been the most durable player in the sense that she has missed a lot of tennis, which can be seen by the number of matches she has played each year. You can’t see that number getting anywhere close to 70 or 80, but you shouldn’t have that much trouble with it.

She is still quite young, trains well, goes to the gym regularly and is completely dedicated to her tennis career, so there shouldn’t be many problems with illnesses or physical problems such as real injuries. In any case, it is, and that is a problem. It’s a problem because if you can’t play regularly, the level doesn’t matter, because in tennis it’s all about consistency and how much you can play.

What does their future look like? Well, that depends on how you look at it. If she is trusted to figure this out and become a player who can compete regularly, then she will be one of the best players in the world for a very long time. Her tennis was never a problem this year because when she played, she usually played very well and beat very good players. She won against both Sabalenka and Swiatek on their best surfaces, which tells you everything you need to know.

If she also manages to get her physical problems under control, then she is good to go. There is little doubt about that. However, there is some doubt because of what has happened in the last two months. There have been some very bizarre things as Elena Rybakina recently split from her long-time coach Stefano Vukov. The two have always had a somewhat strange relationship and dynamic that has made headlines in the past. Many tennis analysts have spoken about this in the past and noticed that something was wrong.

Breaking up with a tennis coach isn’t that unusual overall, but the timing at which it happened was a bit strange. Then there were reports that Vukov was suspended by the WTA, which is certainly very notable news because something like this doesn’t happen without reason. Usually when something like this happens it’s a very bad reason, but there are no spectacular confirmations yet as to whether that’s true or not.

Then there were some rumors going around that something big was going to come out about Vukov and the whole Rybakina situation, which just made the whole thing even stranger, so Rybakina and what’s been going on lately is now shrouded in a veil of mystery .

She has since withdrawn from all events and we haven’t really seen her on the tennis court yet. Nobody knows what really happened between her and the trainer and what caused the breakup. She hasn’t really commented on it either, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. This raises even more doubts about the future and what might happen to it. Overall, there are also a lot of secrets.

If we assume the best case scenario, that is, if Rybakina gets her physical problems under control and the whole coaching situation is resolved well, then the future should be bright. As we have mentioned several times, her quality as a tennis player is never in question, and she has played better this year than ever when she was fully healthy and there was nothing going on in her team.

If she doesn’t get her physical problems under control and they continue to plague her, her future could look pretty bleak because if she can’t play regularly, she will ultimately stagnate as a player. We don’t want to speculate about the coaching situation because there is no indication of what might have happened there. Every fan is hoping this isn’t something spectacularly serious, but given the rumors and reports, it could be.

An analysis by James Lloyd