Elena Rybakina

Elena Rybakina Bio

Elena Andreyevna Rybakina is a Russian-born Kazakhstani professional tennis player. She has been ranked as high as world No. 3 in women’s singles by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA). Rybakina has won 11 WTA Tour-level singles titles, including a major at the 2022 Wimbledon Championships, as well as the 2025 WTA Finals and two WTA 1000 events. Rybakina is the first Kazakhstani to win a major and to be ranked in the world’s top 10. She is also the first player representing an Asian country to win the WTA Finals. Rybakina received the largest payout in the history of women’s sport and tennis for winning the WTA Finals singles title.

Early Life and Background

Elena Rybakina was born on 17 June 1999 in Moscow, Russia. 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 due to 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.

Path to Tennis

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 made her junior-major debut later in the year at the US Open, where she reached the third round. Rybakina made her junior-major debut later in the year at the US Open, where she reached the third round. 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.

Elena Rybakina Career

Early Career (2014–2018)

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. 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. The following month, Rybakina acquired Kazakhstani citizenship and switched federations from Russia to Kazakhstan, having just turned nineteen years old at the time.

Breakthrough (2019–2021)

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. 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. 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. 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. Rybakina finished the season at No. 37 in the world. She reached the quarterfinals of the French Open without dropping a set when she defeated Serena Williams in the fourth round. At the Olympic Games, Rybakina won her first three matches without losing a set before a semifinals defeat to Belinda Bencic.

Notable Works and Milestones

Rybakina’s career highlight was winning the 2022 Wimbledon Championships, where she became the first Kazakhstani singles player (male or female) to reach the semifinal of a Grand Slam. She defeated Simona Halep in straight sets to reach her first major final, becoming the youngest Wimbledon finalist since Garbiñe Muguruza in 2015.