AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 11, 2025

Elena Rybakina

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Elena, talk about how you're feeling at the moment. You had some good matches in Perth and Sydney in United Cup. How is the start of the season for you?

ELENA RYBAKINA: Yeah, first time played United Cup. First time was in Perth. I think it was good start of the season so far. We had some good matches, a lot of fun also playing this team competition.

Yeah, looking forward to start here.

THE MODERATOR: Who would like the first question?

Q. Can you talk us through the situation with Stefano, what capacity he's going to be, what role he's going to be playing on your team, what you'd like him to be doing on your team, how much you've been told about what he'll be able to do moving forward?

ELENA RYBAKINA: Well, first of all, like with the whole situation, I don't want to speak much about what's going to be next. But definitely, as I said before, I don't agree with a lot of things what WTA do in the sense of my relationship with Stefano.

As I said before, I have never made any complaints or any of these things. I always said that he never mistreated me. That's one thing.

Since this situation how it is now, I don't really want to speak about this more. I want to focus on my matches here.

Q. Will it be difficult for you to focus on your matches not having one of the coaches you would prefer to have?

ELENA RYBAKINA: Well, definitely not the ideal situation. As I said, I'm not happy with the whole situation, especially when still some coaches are making some comments, and the people who are not so close to the tennis world, they just see the comments and then they're picking it up, make even more show out of this. I don't think it's fair, too.

But as I said, my goal is here to focus on the matches. This is what I'm going to do.

Q. For your coaching situation here, it's going to be Goran with you during the tournament still?

ELENA RYBAKINA: Well, as you see we're here, we are working. Yes, it's him.

Q. What will his role be for this tournament?

ELENA RYBAKINA: As I said already, I'm not going to speak about it more since the situation is not clear from the WTA, too.

Q. Can I ask how it's been with Goran generally? You're at the early stages of working with him. Obviously reports are that he was a bit surprised by Stefano being brought back into the team. How has it been since you announced that?

ELENA RYBAKINA: Well, we spoke with Goran. As you all know, we did just pre-season. The first tournament is United Cup. It's been not so much time.

But we getting know each other. We spoke with him. We are working now. We are focusing on this tournament.

Q. What is your tennis goal for 2025, your life goal for 2025?

ELENA RYBAKINA: Well, in tennis of course I want just to stay healthy because last year I skipped a lot of tournaments. I was not able to participate in big events. For me to play from beginning till end of the year.

Of course, I want to win big titles. This is my goal on court.

Outside of the court, I'm happy. I finally got my driver license. This is one part which I'm happy (smiling). Yeah, basically, I mean, I think it's the same: just to stay healthy. Even when you have some time off, you don't want to stay in bed trying to get better. You want to do something, too.

I think that's the main focus.

Q. How important were those couple of months? It was difficult with the injury, but did you recharge and revitalize away from the tour?

ELENA RYBAKINA: Of course, I want to say it's not easy when you got used to travel every week. To make decision also to not play, not to push yourself, because you are competitor. At the end of the day, you always want to be better.

For me the whole year was pretty difficult. Coming back from Melbourne, like the issues with sleep started. It's been going on for a long time. So of course it was not easy.

It was very helpful. These two months which I didn't practice at all I think help me a lot.

Q. (Question regarding the driver's license.)

ELENA RYBAKINA: Yeah, it's been nice. Not as many hours as I wanted. But still I think this is something important I finally did outside of the court.

Q. You were mentioning not being happy with the comments that other coaches were making. Do you understand why they're making these comments or why they're concerned about the situation?

ELENA RYBAKINA: Well, I get that one of coaches, Pam Shriver, I don't know her personally. She never came to me personally, never talked with me, but I know her story. It's sad, but it doesn't mean other players facing the same issues. Since she doesn't know me, I don't know her, I don't think it's fair to make any comments like that, especially being an active coach, being commentator, journalist, so on.

Q. You talked about wanting to stay healthy this year, to be able to play a full schedule. What have you kind of done or what are you planning to do to help make that happen, whether it's dietary changes, fitness, schedule?

ELENA RYBAKINA: Well, I think I definitely need to listen to my body more because no one will know how I feel, not even my team members. They can just see out of practices. But I need to listen to my body much better.

Since I already have this issues of low immune system, I had other issues before, I need to make some decisions better towards also schedule. It's not easy to skip, as I said. Sometimes it's also not what is so easy to do by the rules and so on. You need to make this decision. Hopefully I can make it better for the season.

Q. You play Emerson Jones, a teenager, 16. What is it like playing someone so young in a Grand Slam? Do you know much about her?

ELENA RYBAKINA: Well, I think she's definitely a good player. I don't know her much, but I just saw on TV I think one set of her playing with Daria Kasatkina. I think she's a good player, dangerous player. Especially when you're young, you have nothing to lose. She's at home.

I definitely take it as a very tough opponent because you never know what to expect. I don't know her. So yeah, I'm just going to focus on myself and try to do as good as possible.

Q. About staying healthy, are there fitness things that you're doing to try and become stronger or was a lot of it just bad luck?

ELENA RYBAKINA: Well, as I said, when my insomnia started, the whole immune system went down. I kept on pushing. Maybe I should have take the rest a little bit earlier. For five or six years I'm on tour, I'm playing non-stop. Even in off-season we have maybe one or two weeks. I was struggling during Wimbledon. After that I had only four days and I got sick again.

It's very delicate for me just the whole process of preparing for the tournament. As we are in this environment, it's a lot of people, a lot of things. I tend to get these viruses very quick.

I'm focusing, of course, and trying to change a little bit maybe my preparation, physical part. As I said, times you get unlucky. Not much you can do if your immune system is really low. I'm trying to take some vitamins, of course, but there's not much you can do when you travel so often.