How to Beat Elena Rybakina

Elena Rybakina’s presence on the tour has become more intimidating since her Wimbledon 2022 title run. Notably, Rybakina handily beat current world number one Iga Swiatek in the Australian Open en route to the final. Swiatek, along with the rest of the WTA tour, has been struggling to counter the Kazakh’s strong play—Rybakina is a big server with hard groundstrokes on both sides (kind of like Pliskova with better movement). Her weaknesses are not super apparent, but they still exist. Here are some tips that players might be able to use to keep up with her. To preface, I’m not a coach or a professional player; these are just observations I have.

In my opinion, Rybakina’s weaknesses interestingly contrast her strengths. She is arguably the best server on the WTA circuit (via process of elimination—Parks and Gauff double fault far too frequently, Garcia’s first serve percentage is too low, and Sabalenka’s serve itself is her biggest strength and weakness.) Rybakina racks up a huge number of aces per match, almost always exceeding her number of double faults. Her contrasting weakness to this strength is her somewhat lackluster return game—you can tell because she rarely bagels or breadsticks her opponents (regardless of ranking). Keeping this in mind, my first tip would be to emphasize holding serve over putting all efforts into breaking Rybakina. Placing pressure on her to hold her own serve well instead of giving her easy breaks will make the match longer but more challenging for her.

Rybakina also hits some of the hardest, flattest groundstrokes on the tour when the ball is in her strike zone, but she struggles to hit at her usual pace when moved around the court. My second tip is just that—focus on making her move. Although it’s not a weakness of hers, her movement is not stellar. When she is on the run, her rally ball is much easier to manage. Being able to take control of rallies away from her is pivotal because very few players can outhit her otherwise.

Additionally, Rybakina is very tall, standing at 6’ 0’’. Another way to keep shots out of her strike zone is to keep the ball low. This goal is most easily accomplished with slices: for example, Ashleigh Barty did this to great success in the Adelaide 2022 final against Rybakina. More balls out of her strike zone lead to more opportunities to seize control of the points and match.

All of these tips can also be used against any opponents who play similar games to Rybakina.