Elena Rybakina

Elena Andreyevna Rybakina (born 17 June 1999) is a Russian-born Kazakhstani professional tennis player. She is currently ranked world No. 3 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). Rybakina has won 12 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 Australian Open final in 2023 and rising to world No. 3 for the first time later that year. At the end of 2025, Rybakina won the WTA Finals, followed by the Australian Open in 2026, for which she regained the world No. 3 ranking.

Rybakina is noted for her excellent serve and can generate high-powered groundstrokes. She plays primarily from the baseline.

Early life and background

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.

Juniors

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.

The 2017 season was Rybakina's last year on the junior tour. In the middle of the season, she won her first and only Grade-A title at the Trofeo Bonfiglio, defeating Iga Świątek in the final. She also fared better at the Grand Slam events compared to previous years, losing in the semifinals of the Australian Open and the French Open to eventual champions Marta Kostyuk and Whitney Osuigwe, respectively. She finished her junior career at the first round-robin edition of the ITF Junior Masters, the junior counterpart to the WTA Finals. She won one match in her round-robin group and finished in seventh place.

Professional career

2014–18: First ITF titles, federation change

Rybakina began playing on the ITF Women's Circuit in December 2014, at the age of fifteen. While she was still playing on the junior circuit, she reached three ITF finals in singles and two in doubles, winning both of the doubles finals only in 2017. She also made her WTA Tour debut in October 2017 at the Kremlin Cup, where she reached the main draw through qualifying but lost in the opening round to Irina-Camelia Begu.

At her next WTA tournament in February 2018, Rybakina won her first WTA Tour match at the St. Petersburg Trophy against Timea Bacsinszky. She then upset world No. 7 Caroline Garcia in three sets, after saving a match point in the second set. Losing in the next round, this quarterfinal appearance helped her rise from No. 450 to No. 268 in the world. In March, Rybakina won her first ITF singles title at a $15k event in Kazan, where she also won the doubles title. Her next significant rankings jump came in April when she finished runner-up to Sabina Sharipova at the $60k Lale Cup in Istanbul, bringing her to No. 215. She broke into the top 200 for the first time in late May. Having just turned nineteen years old, Rybakina acquired Kazakhstani citizenship the following month and switched federations from Russia to Kazakhstan. The Kazakhstan Tennis Federation had offered her financial support to change her nationality, which she chose over various options to play college tennis in the United States.

Playing for Kazakhstan, Rybakina entered her first Grand Slam qualifying draw at the 2018 US Open, but did not reach the main draw.

2019: First tour title and top 50

After playing mostly ITF events in the first half of 2019, Rybakina began playing primarily on the WTA Tour in the second half of the season. During the first few months of the year, she won three ITF titles, including the $60k Launceston International. She made her Grand Slam debut at the French Open as a qualifier, losing to Kateřina Siniaková. In her first WTA event on grass, Rybakina made her first tour semifinal at the Rosmalen Grass Court Championships. Despite this success, she lost in qualifying at Wimbledon. Rybakina's breakthrough came in July when she won her maiden WTA Tour title at the Bucharest Open, a month after turning 20 years old. During the event, she upset second seed Viktória Kužmová before defeating Patricia Maria Țig in the final. With this title, she made her top 100 debut in the WTA rankings at No. 65.

Rybakina qualified for her second main-draw Grand Slam match of the year at the US Open, but again lost in the first round. At her next tournament, she made her second WTA Tour tournament final of the year at the Jiangxi International Open, finishing runner-up to Rebecca Peterson. This result brought her into the top 50 for the first time. Rybakina closed out the year strong, reaching at least the quarterfinals at her last three events of the season. In particular, she reached the quarterfinals at the Wuhan Open, her first career Premier-5 event. In the tournament, she defeated world No. 6, Simona Halep, who retired late in the first set with a lower back injury. She lost in the next round to eventual champion and world No. 14, Aryna Sabalenka. Rybakina finished the season at No. 37 in the world.

2020: Five finals and top 20

Rybakina led the WTA Tour in finals during the 2020 season, and finished tied for second in match wins. She reached the finals at four of her first five events. Before the COVID-19 pandemic led to the shutdown of the WTA Tour for more than five months, she had reached the final of every tournament except for the Australian Open and the Qatar Ladies Open, losing to world No. 1, Ashleigh Barty, in both instances, the latter in a walkover due to an abductor strain in her leg. Prior to the Australian Open, her two finals came at International events. After losing her first final of the year to Ekaterina Alexandrova at the Shenzhen Open, she defeated Zhang Shuai to win her second WTA title at the Hobart International. At Melbourne, she recorded her first two Grand Slam main-draw match wins against Bernarda Pera and Greet Minnen. Following the tournament, she reached two Premier finals at the St. Petersburg Trophy and the Dubai Championships, finishing runner-up to No. 8 Kiki Bertens and No. 2 Simona Halep, respectively. At Dubai in particular, Rybakina defeated two top-ten players in No. 7 Sofia Kenin and No. 3 Karolína Plíšková, the latter of which was the highest ranked player she had defeated to date. These four finals helped her climb to No. 17 in the world at the time of the tour shutdown. She also became the first Kazakhstani player in the top 20 in history.