Elena Rybakina isn’t someone who likes to hear herself talk. She keeps things short and sweet. And that’s exactly how she plays tennis.
The first Kazakhstani tennis player to win a major tournament, she’s one of the most exciting players on the WTP tour right now and her service game is unique in the women’s game. ‘Boom-Boom-Elena’ is the name she’s often known by in the tennis tour bubble. “Of course, the key to my success lies in my serve and my aggressive game,” she says of her famous power. Hardly anyone on the tour hits harder.
Elena started playing tennis at the age of five at home in Kazakhstan. For her parents that was a good compromise. They were considering a future as a figure skater or as a gymnast, but she was too tall for both, so tennis became her sport and success on the court quickly came. As a junior she achieved remarkable victories all over the world and in 2017 she reached the semi-finals of both the Australian and French Opens.
To become world number one is Elena’s ultimate goal in tennis, but she already knows how to win big tournaments, including perhaps the most famous Grand Slam of them all, Wimbledon.
Her breathtaking winning streak at the famed grass court tournament in London in the summer of 2022 ended with a career-defining triumph in the final over Ons Jabeur. It was her first title at one of the four major tournaments, as well as first for a Kazakhstani player, and marked the start of an extremely successful period in her career.
She reached the final at the Australian Open in early 2023, where she missed on the win against world number two Aryna Sabalenka over three hard-fought sets, but then took the win at two important Masters 1000 tournaments in Indian Wells and Rome before the main bulk of the season even kicked off.
2020 marked Elena’s place in the top 20 WTA Global Ranking and she ended 2021 as number 14 in the world, before soaring into the top three by the summer of 2023. So, what’s next?
“I want to go back to what I had before,” she says, meaning her Wimbledon victory, and another major title is surely just around the corner.
