Elena Rybakina has strongly denied claims of abuse by her former coach Stefano Vukov, criticising the WTA, active commentators and coaches who have made accusations against Vukov on social media.
Rybakina announced in the New Year that Vukov would be rejoining her team for 2025, alongside Goran Ivanišević, who she hired last year as her coach.
However, shortly after, The New York Times revealed that Vukov was currently under investigation and would not receive accreditation at the Australian Open as a result of a "potential breach of conduct".
During her press conference after her loss to Iga Świątek, Rybakina confirmed that she would continue to work with both Ivanišević and Vukov, despite the latter’s suspension and strongly refuted any claims of abuse against her long-time coach.
"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," the 2023 Wimbledon champion said.
"I mean, I'm working with Goran. I'm happy [with] the way we work now for the couple of weeks. As I also said, Stefano is rejoining the team because I know the person for six years, and there [are] a lot of things we can do outside of the court too."
She also criticised active coaches and commentators on the tour who have made comments about the situation and pointed to her success with Vukov in her corner.
"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," she said.
"The only thing I can say is, like, he never mistreated me. I have respect [for] him, for everything he did from the very beginning when I was 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 Grand Slam and being in the top."
Pam Shriver, who is the current coach of Croatian WTA star Donna Vekic, wrote on X earlier this week in response to the news of Vukov rejoining Rybakina’s team, saying: "It's time for our entire sport to finally stand up to known abuse and cult like manipulations of players. This is a very sad situation and my prayers are with ER [Elena Rybakina]."
A WTA statement confirmed the following: "The WTA can confirm that Stefan Vukov is currently under a provisional suspension pending an independent investigation into a potential breach of the WTA Code of Conduct."
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