Elena Rybakina’s 2025 has started very differently from expectations. Her path towards the Australian Open has certainly been conditioned by the case involving Stefano Vukov, whom the Kazakh player desperately wants in her team despite being suspended by the WTA and cannot be accredited to the tournaments of the professional tour for the moment.
Their professional relationship had broken down in the latter part of last year and Vukov had received quite serious accusations of misconduct from some insiders. Elena has always defended him, but she had decided to hire Novak Djokovic’s former coach Goran Ivanisevic as her new coach.
Their collaboration seemed to be very fruitful, until Rybakina announced that Vukov would be returning to her team. This strange and complicated situation irritated Ivanisevic a lot, who followed his player in the first Grand Slam of the new season but could not make a significant impact and seemed very frustrated.
At the end of the Happy Slam, the former Croatian champion announced his separation from Rybakina wishing her the best for her future.
Rybakina surprises everyone
Elena has not had much time to fix this situation and will have to clarify some issues soon, but in the meantime she showed up at the Abu Dhabi WTA 500 together with Davide Sanguinetti. The former Italian player is 44 years old and retired in 2009, ending a career in which he won two ATP titles and reached a best ranking of number 42 in the world.
It is not clear whether their collaboration is only temporary or whether it is intended to last for a longer period of time.
At this stage of his career, the Kazakh star needs serenity to return to play her best tennis.
Because of these events, she distanced herself from Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek in the WTA rankings and lost the chance to achieve a prestigious result at Melbourne Park. The season is still long and Elena has time to redeem herself.
Official communications on Vukov’s status are expected soon from WTA, which has maintained the utmost confidentiality on this situation.
Tennis World USA