Elena Rybakina says the aftermath of her historic win at Wimbledon has affected her training after crashing out of the Silicon Valley Classic in San Jose.
Playing in her first match since winning her maiden Grand Slam title, the Kazakh fell 1-6, 6-2, 6-0, to Daria Kasatkina. Kasatkina is playing in her first tournament since publicly coming out as gay. Rybakina struggled with her serve throughout the match, especially in the third set where she only managed to win three out of 15 points played.
“It was a tough week after Wimbledon,” said Rybakina. “I had a lot of things to do. I didn’t have enough time to prepare for the hard season. I wanted to come and try my best…. I’m just happy that I’m here and I started my matches, so hopefully it will just be better and better.”
At The All England Club, the 23-year-old became the first player from her country to win a major title after defeating Ons Jabeur in three sets. She also defeated former Grand Slam champions Bianca Andreescu in the second round and Simona Halep in the semi-finals.
In the wake of her achievement, Rybakina returned home to a hero’s welcome and participated in various activities. She was born in Russia but switched her allegiance to Kazakhstan a few years ago. Leading up to this week’s tournament, Rybakina says the past few weeks have been a chaotic experience for her.
“It hasn’t been easy,” The San Francisco Chronicle quoted her as saying. “Coming to San Jose was straight after my trip to Kazakhstan. It was a very long time there, just everything straight away (after Wimbledon) so it was quite, quite tough. But I met so many people and it was super nice to see all the kids in Kazakhstan. I didn’t sleep for three days and then was resting for five.”
Meanwhile, Rubakina’s conqueror Kasatkina is eying another strong run in San Jose after finishing runner-up 12 months ago. She has now recorded 94 wins over top 50 players in her career with 16 of those occurring this season. Overall, she has won 28 matches so far this year.
“I was trying not to follow the score. It’s very tough, it’s almost impossible, but I knew that the high-level hitters especially, as soon as you lose concentration and they find a few winners, they are back. From 3-0 it can easily become 3-all and it’s another story.” The Russian said following her latest match.
Kasatkina will play Taylor Townsend in the second round who beat Storm Sanders 6-1, 6-4.
