Elena Rybakina has defended her former coach Stefan Vukov after the WTA confirmed that he is still suspended.
After working with Vukov for over five years, Rybakina parted ways with the coach just before last year’s US Open.
Then a number allegations came out from journalists that Vukov had verbally abused the Kazakh which led to the departure from her team.
However despite recently hiring Goran Ivanisevic to her team, Rybakina has recently confirmed that Vukov has recently rejoined her team.
There is one problem with that which is that Vukov has been provisionally suspended by the WTA as they conduct their own investigation into the matter, which means Vukov will not be allowed to attend the Australian Open.
Speaking at the United Cup about the matter Rybakina has defended her former coach and insists there was no mistreatment from Vukov to her, “Well, I’m working with Goran, and these articles came out, I mean, I can only say and I said it already before that he never mistreated me or it was never anything like that,” Rybakina was quoted by The Tennis Letter as saying.
“I mean, I’m working with Goran. I’m happy the way we work now for the couple of weeks. As I also said, that Stefano is rejoining the team because I know the person for six years, and there is a lot of things we can do outside of the court too.
“Of course I’m not really happy with the situation. I’m not happy with the comments which I see, especially from the people who are on the tour. It’s active coaches, commentators. I don’t think that it’s fair. Yeah, but the only thing I can say is, like, he never mistreated me. I have respect to him for everything he did from the very beginning when I was ranked 200.. all the way what we did, like, I don’t know.
“You can name me other coaches who had the same success with players who have been 200 and then winning a Grand Slam and being in the top.”
Rybakina can expect plenty of more questions about the situation until the WTA investigation has been completed.
The Kazakh will hope this doesn’t dent her Australian Open preparations as the first Grand Slam of the year begins on the 12th of January.
