Elegance defines Elena Rybakina’s triumph at the Australian Open semis
Elena Rybakina moves one win away from winning the 2023 Australian Open as she defeats Victoria Azarenka in the semi-finals.
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Elena Rybakina
Elena Rybakina has risen from the obscurity of outside courts to prime-time viewership courts at the 2023 Australian Open. On Thursday, the colorfully dressed girl from Kazakhstan showed ace and pace in equal measure as she crushed Victoria Azarenka 7-6, (7-4), 6-3 to enter the ladies’ singles final in Melbourne.
When this edition of the AO began, Elena was not given much of a look, that is, she was not talked of as a favorite. Perhaps, she liked it, just the way as she had clawed her way up the draw like a cat does on a tin roof without making noise. She had done it last July in Wimbledon as well when she blew away Ons Jabeur to win the Venus Rosewater Dish, a symbol of supremacy at The Championships.
At the season’s first Grand Slam, Elena was not being talked of in the same breath as Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff, and even Ons Jabeur. As the draw progressed, when big guns were being dumped into the nearby Yarra River, one of the famous landmarks of Melbourne, Elena Rybakina was taking stealthy steps.
She has that rare appearance, colorful, yet calm. Her game revolves around power and punch, yet she does not make it look ugly like a heavyweight boxer making the opponent bleed. Her game plan against Mom Victoria was similar. To play big tennis from the back court, use her speed and power her way through in rallies.
Kazakh girl Elena Rybakina shows form similar to Wimbledon as she pounds Mom Azarenka
Definitely, the first set was competed evenly but the Kazakh girl came out smoking in the second. Give her an inch, she will grab a foot. That’s the way Elena plays tennis, she dominates and does it without being repentant. Perhaps, it’s that killer instinct in her she can use the tennis racket so craftily. It’s a bit like the thriller description in a murder plot where the steel knife is used more like a nick, than a stab, which leaves you bleeding ugly.
That is what Elena did in the second set, as she reeled out games pretty fast. That is her USP, doing things too fast. To be sure, Elena has been dragged into controversies, because she was born in Russia. Well, the truth is she holds a Kazakh passport and has nothing to do with Russia, a warring state now hated by the power centers of the Western world.
Even during Wimbledon, Elena had made it clear she had nothing to do with Russia, really. Kazakh broke away from the erstwhile USSR in 1991. In fact, they were the last to do so, and since then there has been no looking back. The erstwhile United States of the Social Soviet Republic (USSR) was huge, geographically gigantic, and Communist. Once Glasnost and Perestroika began in the late 80s and the cleansing process started, many states broke away.
Kazakhstan, too, did. So, to blame Elena Rybakina is from Russia is ignorance. There have been many people before in tennis from Russia and the Czech Republic and so on, who moved to the USA or nearby Republics. The first Central Asian tennis nation which produced solid men’s tennis players was Uzbekistan. Kazakh showed the willingness to spend money on players and coaches and that’s how players like Rybakina learned top tennis.
They were drilled in the fundamentals and worked upon like uncut diamonds. The final shine and sparkle is now there to see. Anyone who thinks he or she can work up Elena Rybakina with all this talk on Russia and so on will realize it is a waste. Born in Russia and having tried her hand at gymnastics and ice skating, the shift to tennis was forced. At a height of six feet, her well-wishers felt tennis would be better for her.
The two years of 2019 and 2020 saw her grow. Yet, the explosion took place in 2022 at Wimbledon. It was like, as if, from nowhere, Elena exploded on the big stage. Wimbledon is about tradition and white clothes. Heck, Elena cared two hoots about reputation and engaged in destruction on the grass courts of Wimbledon. Even on that Sunday afternoon when she ripped apart Ons Jabeur with her big game last July, some media guys were more obsessed with Russia.
She had told them, Russia was not going to work her up. In Melbourne, too, where Russia is being raked up almost daily, Elena Rybakina is least bothered. Her game has been awesome, imagine carving up Grand Slam three champions in one edition of the AO and making a meal of them. The list includes Iga Swiatek, Jelena Ostapenko and Victoria Azarenka.
The same had been done by a certain American Jennifer Capriati in 2001 when she beat Martina Hingis, Lindsay Davenport, and Monica Seles. For the record, Elena’s power play on Thursday included nine aces and a winning 76 percentage of 76 on the first serve against Azarenka. She outlined her victory with 30 outright winners, evident from her baseline game domination.
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S Kannan
(382 Articles Published)