Roland Garros: Elena Rybakina explains why coach Stefano Vukov left mid-match
Elena Rybakina’s 2026 French Open campaign came to a halt in the second round and her coach Stefano Vukov was not in her player’s box for the crucial latter stages of her match.
Tipped as one of the favourites to win this year’s title at Roland Garros, the world No 2 started the tournament with a confident 6-2, 6-2 win over Veronika Erjavec to set up a second-round clash with world 55 Yuliia Starodubtseva.
And it all went according to plan for the two-time Grand Slam winner early on as she comfortably won the opening set, but then collapsed in the second set as Starodubtseva won the first five games before she got on the board, only for the Ukrainian to serve it out.
Rybakina’s struggles continued early in the decider as she was once again broken twice to 0-3 down, but finally found some rhythm as she claimed one break back in game four before getting back on serve in game eight.
But Starodubtseva dominated the tie-breaker and sealed the match for a famous 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 (10-4) victory.
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“Honestly it’s hard to describe, I’m super happy,” said Starodubtseva said after the match. “Elena is one of the top players. She’s had an incredible year. I’m super proud of myself that I was able to do this. It was a hard third set, but I got it done.”
Vukov didn’t witness the end as he left midway during the match and a journalist asked her during the post-match conference: “Was Stefano there today or was he did he leave in the middle? There’s some question as to what happened.”
Rybakina was clearly unimpressed by the question as she gave an explanation for Vukov’s early departure.
“I’m not surprised that these questions are coming from you. Yes, he was at the match and he left because he was feeling really bad for the past few days. So he told me that ‘I might leave’. He tried to stay but he was not feeling great and it was not a surprise. We talked about it, so nothing from that side.
“They [coaching team] were just trying to tell me to raise my energy, try to push more with the legs since the ball is flying so much, even on the simple balls, which you feel like coming not so fast, the ball bounces so high that you need to really force the wrist. You need to play with fast hands.
“Today it was not enough from my side. So even when I was not really attacking the ball, I was trying to keep it in play. I had too many mistakes.”
