It's rare to see Elena Rybakina lose her temper on a tennis court, but the 2022 Wimbledon champion's relationship with coach Stefano Vukov might have hit its boiling point.
Rybakina was involved in a seemingly tough match against Latvia's Jelena Ostapenko in the second round of the Cincinnati Masters and had just dropped the first set tiebreak from 6-3 up as her opponent reeled off five straight set points.
Midway through the second set, Rybakina's Croatian coach Vukov appeared to shout some instructions while sitting in the player's box courtside after his charge hammered a fifth double fault in the match. But that didn't sit too well with the ice-cold Kazakhstani player, who hit back at her coach, repeating her response twice.
"If I need something, I'll ask."
Earlier this year, Vukov was the center of controversy as pundits such as Marion Bartoli and Pam Shriver publicly criticized his lack of respect towards Rybakina in the Australian Open semifinal. Vukov's gestures and shouting at Rybakina irked many watching on TV.
Rybakina needed to come out with a lengthy penned post on her social media accounts in support of the 36-year-old former ATP pro, saying at the time that people don't know the dynamics of her team or how it functions.
Rybakina, however, has not yet spoken about the latest incident in which she fired back at Vukov while playing, as there was probably less attention to her match against Osapenko on Court 3. But nevertheless, the big-serving Kazakhstani player was immensely happy to turn the match around when she spoke in her post-match interview on the court.
"Thank you so much, first of all to everyone who came to watch us and supported us. Yeah, it's of course a great thing to be a Grand Slam champion but there is a lot for me to improve, a lot of goals so I'm trying not to think about it so much. But of course, it gives confidence for the tournaments."
0 Comments