Elena Rybakina
Elena Rybakina
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Elena Rybakina

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Elena Rybakina

Elena Andreyevna Rybakina (born 17 June 1999) is a Russian-born Kazakhstani professional tennis player. She is currently ranked world No. 2 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). Rybakina has won 13 WTA Tour-level singles titles, including two majors at the 2022 Wimbledon Championships and the 2026 Australian Open, as well as the 2025 WTA Finals and two WTA 1000 events. Rybakina is the first Kazakhstani player to win a major and to be ranked inside the world's top 10.

A former junior world No. 3, Rybakina started her career competing for Russia before switching federations to Kazakhstan in 2018. She broke through in 2020 when she played in five tour finals, the most of any player that year. Rybakina won her first major title in 2022 at Wimbledon, before reaching the 2023 Australian Open final. At the end of 2025, Rybakina won the WTA Finals, followed by the 2026 Australian Open, and shortly after rose to a career-high ranking of world No. 2.

Rybakina is noted for her excellent serve and can generate high-powered groundstrokes. She plays primarily from the baseline. She is known for her calm demeanor on court, and is often referred to with the nickname "Ice Queen".

Elena Rybakina was born on 17 June 1999 in Moscow to Andrey Rybakin and Ekaterina. She started playing sports with her older sister, Anna, from a very young age, originally focusing on gymnastics and ice skating. Upon being told that she was too tall to become a professional in either of those sports, her father suggested she switch to tennis instead because of his interest in the sport. Rybakina began playing tennis at the age of six.

Rybakina moved from the Dynamo Sports Club to the Spartak Tennis Club, where she had several accomplished coaches. She trained with former top-10 player Andrey Chesnokov and former top-100 player Evgenia Kulikovskaya. One of her fitness coaches was Irina Kiseleva, a World Championship gold medalist in the modern pentathlon.

Rybakina did not have individual training until she was a junior, instead practicing in a group of about eight players up until age 15 and a group of four players through age 18. She also only played tennis about two hours per day and trained in fitness for three hours a day. Her time for tennis was limited in part because she attended a regular high school not specialized for athletes and needed to balance tennis with schoolwork.

Rybakina is a former world No. 3 junior. She began playing on the ITF Junior Circuit in November 2013 at the age of 14. The following March, she won her first title at her second career event, the Grade-3 Almetievsk Cup. She played her first Grade-2 event in June at the Ozerov Cup in Moscow, finishing runner-up to compatriot Anna Blinkova. She began playing Grade-1 events from the start of 2015, but did not have any success until she reached the final at the Belgian International Junior Championships in May, losing to Katharina Hobgarski.

Rybakina made her junior-major debut later in the year at the US Open, where she reached the third round. Following an opening-round loss at the 2016 Australian Open, she won back-to-back Grade-1 titles. She continued to struggle at the junior Grand Slam and other Grade-A events in singles for the rest of the year. Her best result of 2016 at the Grade A-events came in doubles when she finished runner-up to Olesya Pervushina and Anastasia Potapova at the Trofeo Bonfiglio, alongside Amina Anshba in an all-Russian final.

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