Elena Rybakina is a Russian-born Kazakhstan tennis player. She’s 23 years-old. She’s 6 feet tall. She competes on the WTA Tour. Rybakina has won one major title and advanced to an additional major quarterfinal. Rybakina represents Kazakhstan at all international competitions including the Olympics and the Billie Jean King Cup. She holds the record for highest ranked player in Kazakhstan history.
Elena Rybakina was born in Moscow, Russia on June 17, 1999. She competed as a representative of Russia throughout her junior career and into the early stages of her professional career from 2013-2018. She started representing Kazakhstan in 2018 after the Kazakhstan government agreed to sponsor her training and career. She made her WTA debut in October 2017 at the Kremlin Cup. She won her first WTA Tour singles title at the 2019 Bucharest Open. She won her second WTA Tour singles title at the 2020 Hobart International prior to the WTA season being put on pause due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. Rybakina achieved a career-high ranking of world number 12 in January 2022. This also made her the highest ranked player in Kazakhstan history. Rybakina has a total of three WTA singles titles and 234 match wins in her career so far.
Elena Rybakina has advanced to the 3rd round or better at all four major tournaments. She was a quarterfinalist at the 2021 French Open. Rybakina claimed her first major singles title at the 2022 Wimbledon where she defeated the number 2 ranked tennis player Ons Jabeur in the final. However, she was not awarded rankings points because of the WTA’s decision to strip rankings points from Wimbledon, after Wimbledon decided to ban Russian and Belarusian players due to the invasion of Ukraine carried out by Russian leader Vladamir Putin. She then faced scrutiny of her own due to her Russian heritage despite representing Kazakhstan since 2018. This is her biggest tournament win of her career so far. It was also her third WTA singles title of her career.
Elena Rybakina has represented Kazakhstan at all international tennis competitions. She finished in 4th after losing to Ukrainian player Elina Svitolina in the Bronze Medal Match at the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. She was part of Team Kazakhstan in the 2022 Billie Jean King Cup. Kazakhstan qualified for the Billie Jean King Cup Finals scheduled at the end of the 2022 season, but they lost in the group stage.
Elena Rybakina would have normally qualified for the year-end WTA Tour Finals in 2022 by virtue of winning Wimbledon earlier this year, but since rankings points were not awarded at this year’s Wimbledon, Rybakina missed out on the WTA Tour Finals. She finished the 2022 season with a world ranking of number 22.
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