Elena Rybakina slams WTA probe into Vukov as Australian Open nears
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Elena Rybakina has backed her former coach Stefano Vukov and expressed her disagreement with the Women’s Tennis Association as the governing body continued its investigation into the Croat on the eve of the Australian Open. “I don’t agree with a lot of things what the WTA do in the sense of my relationship with Stefano,” said Rybakina, the sixth seed in Melbourne. “As I said before, I have never made any complaints or any of these things. I always said that he never mistreated me. That’s one thing. Since this situation is how it is now, I don’t really want to speak about this more. I want to focus on my matches here.”.
![[Elena Rybakina representing Kazakhstan at the United Cup]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b9a277e3e25f70696dfbeac51b4e61fecfdb1891/0_123_6400_3840/master/6400.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Earlier this week, the WTA confirmed it had opened an investigation into Vukov owing to an alleged breach of its code of conduct. He is provisionally suspended from the tour, meaning he cannot receive accreditation and access the private player areas despite his original intent to attend the Australian Open.
Vukov was Rybakina’s first full-time coach and they worked together for five years, including when she won Wimbledon in 2022, until they split last August before the US Open. The Kazakhstani has since hired Goran Ivanisevic, Novak Djokovic’s former coach, and their collaboration began at the beginning of the year. Last week, during the United Cup, their first tournament together, Rybakina surprised many by announcing that Vukov would be returning to her team in an unspecified role.
Ivanisevic has, in an interview with the tennis blog Bounces, expressed uncertainty about his future with Rybakina. Ivanisevic said he had “told her what I think” but wanted to wait until the end of the investigation before saying anything further. “I am, for the moment, here,” he said. “What’s going to happen in a couple of days, I don’t know. Hopefully I will stay, and hopefully everything is going to be OK. But let’s take day by day.”.
