Elena Rybakina caused quite a stir on social media not just because of how well she performed in her opening win at Roland Garros but also because of her brazen voice in her press conference.
Rybakina played her first match in three weeks after missing her title defense at the Italian Open because of illness. But she quickly returned to winning ways as she blitzed past Greet Minnen 6-2, 6-3.
It was a perfect way to kick off her French Open campaign, although she will need to polish up her serve, which was broken three times by the Belgian. The most surprising part of the day was not Rybakina's shaky delivery but her blunt response to calling out reporters for their way of questioning.
The 24-year-old Kazakhstani felt that she had addressed some of the questions in the previous interviews and demanded better questions. Several journalists did not take kindly to the former Wimbledon champion's conduct, with American tennis writer Ben Rothenberg far from impressed.
"Oleg said it in my last RT, but honestly, for a player to whine about not getting prime court slots and media and then to be aggressively insolent in press when folks are trying to make her interesting…just a fundamental ignorance of how to succeed in the entertainment industry."
"And this is an established pattern with Rybakina particularly, to be clear…entitlement and resentment about not thriving in this part of the job without putting in any effort to do this part of the job."
The video in which Rybakina delivered the sassy press conference has clocked one million impressions in just 24 hours on X (formerly Twitter). TennisONE reporter, popularly known as Vansh, was less severe in his criticism.
"Honestly, I get Elena is frustrated, but that’s just part of the job. Journalists have to ask certain questions. She could “make it interesting” and go in different directions with them if she wanted to try harder at it and get the media to understand her personality better."
There were mixed reactions, with some calling for tennis players to be given the freedom to skip press conferences for the sake of their mental well-being.
"Give players a few free passes each year where they can skip press if they just aren’t into it that day or for mental health reasons. I give her a pass… anyone can have a day like this. It’s not really gonna work for her to do this regularly tho Her dad who worked in media knows."
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