Elena Rybakina started the year on a high when she won the Australian Open. She also finished runner-up in Indian Wells and reached the semis of the Miami Open, and looked to be closing in on Aryna Sabalenka’s No. 1 ranking.
But the last two Grand Slam tournaments have not gone to plan for the Kazakh. She lost in the second round of the French Open and was beaten by Elise Mertens in round three of Wimbledon earlier today.
Rybakina also went out in the second round at Queen’s and lost her opening match in Berlin. But the former Wimbledon champion couldn’t explain her recent loss of form.
She said: “Well, if I knew why, I wouldn’t be in this situation right now. As soon as it happened a couple weeks ago when I was not playing my best, honestly, I don’t know. I have been working well, I think, in the past weeks. I was getting a lot of opportunities since I was losing early in the tournaments. Yeah, definitely I need to analyse and change something, because it’s not working.”