Aryna Sabalenka’s coach Anton Dubrov says “clearly something” is amiss with Elena Rybakina as he shared his thoughts on the Kazakh player’s split with her long-term coach Stefano Vukov.
Rybakina has had a troubled 2024 campaign as she has missed several tournaments due to health and injury problems.
To complicate matters further, the 25-year-old also announced before the US Open that she and Vukov have parted company following nearly five successful years together.
The 2022 Wimbledon winner has played only one match since the news broke as she won her first-round match at the season-ending Grand Slam before pulling out of the tournament. She recently also withdrew from the Asian swing, citing a back injury.
Dubrov, who has worked with Sabalenka since 2020, was asked during an interview with Championat if Rybakina’s health issues were “gastrointestinal tract or psychological problems” and he replied: “We communicate well on the courts, but we don’t go too far in personal matters. Injuries, for example, are not discussed. What has been happening in recent months – there’s clearly something. If she wants, she’ll talk about it.
“Maybe motivation or health. When we met at tournaments, she might not feel so good. She would just say: ‘Immune system is low.’” Neither I nor anyone from the team knows. We didn’t write to her personally, because we don’t think it’s quite right.”
Rubakina’s split from Vukov has caused a stir as it was reported that his name had been removed from the list of approved coaches by the WTA Tour while recently former world No 1 Andy Roddick warned “bad news” could be coming with regards to the situation.
“There’s obviously more to the story but we can’t have an opinion on something you don’t know anything about,” the American said on his Served with Andy Roddick podcast.
He added: “Her coach got banned from [the Tour] – there’s a coaching list of available coaches and they kicked him off. You don’t get kicked off for nothing.”
Journalist Sofya Tartakova stated that Rybakina was “suffering” due to “tremendous pressure associated with her former coach Vukov”, saying “there was pressure, insults, bad words that constantly came from Vukov’s lips”.
When asked if he knew why Vukov was suspended from coaching on the WTA, Dubrov said either party could have requested that his name be removed from the approved list.
“I saw it on social networks. This is not discussed within the tour. Since tennis is an individual sport, the teams remain within themselves due to competition. And it is rare that you enter into another team’s personal spaces,” he said.
“This may be so, but I don’t understand what the prerequisites could be. Sometimes, when a person finishes working with someone, he can write to the WTA in a fit of emotion, asking them to remove him from everything. Maybe it was his request.
“Maybe they had such a fight that she approached the WTA and said to remove his name, that he was coaching her. There were internal matters. This was during the US Open , I didn’t really want to write to him, because I thought I’d stay as realistic as possible and keep the attention on my people. If there’s no news, I’ll write to Stefano, ask how he is.”
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