Andy Roddick and Kim Clijsters believe “more will come out” after Elena Rybakina’s former coach Stefano Vukov was removed from tennis’ official coaching list with the American fearing it’s unlikely to be good news.
Rybakina caused a stir just before the US Open when she announced that she had split from Vukov, who has been her mentor since 2019.
In a post shared on social media, the 2022 Wimbledon champion simply stated: “After 5 years Stefano and I are no longer working together.
“I thank him for his work on-court and wish him all the best for the future. Thank you all for the support.”
Rybakina went on to win her opening match at Flushing Meadows, but she then withdrew from the season-ending Grand Slam ahead of her second-round clash “due to my injuries”.
It was her eighth withdrawal from a tournament in 2024 and former doubles world No 1 Rennae Stubbs felt it was bizarre, saying: “I just think there’s something more going on here. This is not a normal situation”.
The Kazakh star has since also withdrawn from the Korea Open and Roddick admits he is also baffled by the situation.
On the Served with Andy Roddick podcast, the American stated: “Elena Rybakina … you look there is a coaching mix-up and she has pulled out suddenly from six or seven events. When she does play it is not like the level has completely dropped off because when she plays, she plays great, she makes finals and wins tournaments.
“When she is in full flight she is as good as anyone. Wins convincingly the first round of the US Open after coaching break-up but doesn’t mention the specifics like, ‘injuries – I’m out; I’m done’.
“I don’t feel like we know the full story and I hope it’s something that is a short-term problem or issue if it’s health… we just don’t know what it is but are we just in wait-and-see mode with her?
“There’s obviously more to the story but we can’t have an opinion on something you don’t know anything about.”
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.”
Fellow former world No 1 Kim Clijsters also believes there is more to the story.
“I think there’s definitely – more will come out,” she said. “He was at the Open.”
The Belgian added: “He had a credential. He was there. It’s like weird… It’s all a guess to everybody besides some people who are part of the organisation. I think we’ll find out more in the future about it. But at the moment, I don’t think – it’s not going to be anything good.”
Roddick continued, saying: “There’s an impending feeling of bad news coming and I would love to be wrong; this is purely conjecture.”
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