Elena Rybakina finished off her week at the 2024 Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart with a trophy after beating Marta Kostyuk, but she paid a price for it.
It's been a long week for Rybakina at the WTA 500 event in Stuttgart, as she had a few complicated matches. None of them was as complicated as the one against Iga Swiatek in the semi-final, which was a long match that went to three sets.
The consequence of that was that she was in quite a bit of pain on Sunday morning when she woke up ahead of the final match against the Ukrainian player, who was certainly motivated to fight for the trophy after recording a couple of upsets herself.
"Well, honestly, when I woke up today, I didn't feel fresh. First few steps, everything was in pain (smiling). But I think you kind of also get used to this kind of soreness."
Soreness is nothing new for most tennis players because it's so common. Rybakina hasn't played a lot of tennis lately, so matches like that have a pretty big effect on her.
"I would say since I was sick in Indian Wells I didn't play for, like, 10 days before Miami. Of course it's not ideally to come to the tournament and just push yourself physically all these matches. These matches are easier when you know you had a good block of preparation."
In the end, she ended up with the trophy, so it was worth it. Playing long matches ultimately makes her fitter, so while it's not fun at that moment, it's good for her in the long run.
"As I said before, I think throughout these long matches, if I'm managing to win it, I'm also getting fitter. So it's kind of 50/50. Of course you don't want to be injured, and it's better to be prepared 100%, but now also my preparation was a little bit short for clay season, but I had really great matches here."
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