Elena Rybakina

Elena Rybakina is a Kazakh player born in Moscow, where she trained at the Spartak club as a junior. She represented Russia until 2018, when, at 19, she switched to Kazakhstan after its federation offered her the financial support she had never received from the Russian federation, a move she chose over playing college tennis in the United States.

Her game is built around one of the best serves in women's tennis and an aggressive, first-strike style. At 1.84m, she has the reach to back it up.

She won Wimbledon in 2022, beating Ons Jabeur in the final, and reached the Australian Open final a year later. Stefano Vukov, her coach through that period, was suspended by the WTA in 2025 over a potential breach of its code of conduct; the ban was lifted that August, and Rybakina has said he never mistreated her.

The strongest stretch of her career followed. She won the 2025 WTA Finals without losing a match, beating Aryna Sabalenka in the final, then beat Sabalenka again to win the 2026 Australian Open. In September 2026 she secured the world No. 1 ranking for the first time, the first player from Kazakhstan to do so.