WATCH: Elena Rybakina congratulates Qinwen Zheng for her Asian Games gold medal after knocking out the local favorite in the first round at the China Open

Elena Rybakina makes her comeback in a very stylish win over the local player Qinwen Zheng.

WATCH: Elena Rybakina congratulates Qinwen Zheng for her Asian Games gold medal after knocking out the local favorite in the first round at the China Open

Elena Rybakina and Qinwen Zheng (Image credits: WTA)

As Elena Rybakina made her return at the China Open with a win against Qinwen Zheng in the first round, Rybakina congratulated Qinwen on her Asian Games gold medal by saying, “I know Qinwen just played the Asian Games. It’s not easy. I congratulate her on such a win. I’m just happy to be back. Thank you so much to everyone who came & supported,” in the post-match interview. Qinwen played well to become the champion of Asia and sealing a spot for herself at the Paris Olympics 2024.

Qinwen began working with Fissette earlier this year, but the 20-year-old now finds herself on the search for a new coach, as Wim Fissette broke her contract midway to get back to coach Naomi Osaka, as she tries to make her comeback.”He broke the contract, and it is very immoral. This is his choice, and I will respect that. Even though this brings some harm to me and my family, I don’t want to talk about that person right now, don’t want to talk about him,” the Asian Games winner said in a post-match interview after her winning the gold medal.

https://youtu.be/0zYD3XA5hUQ?si=CQu0WxqHCCMn5FId

Rybakina had an impressive outing in the game, as she dominated the game by winning it in straight sets the scoreline being 6-1, 6-2. Watch the below video as she congratulates Qinwen on the medal and the crowd for their support.

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Rybakina has made her return after controversy with performance byes at Tokyo

Elena Rybakina has arrived in Beijing and has won the first-round game after a month break since the US Open. In news last week, she decided to withdraw from the Tokyo Open saying that she’s prioritising her health and fitness issues. While, she also appeared in the Yonex event there and Rybakina coming here also shows that she is not dealing with any serious issues, which made her withdraw from the earlier tournament. She also said, “The WTA topic is another topic, on which I have my opinions and will clearly voice them in the future.”

Elena Rybakina
Elena Rybakina at the press. (Image credits: Tennis Majors)

Interestingly, the WTA 500 has performance byes for the top seeds, but the tournament opted to give performance byes and not the usual standard byes. Performance byes are given to the players who have performed well in the previous week to have time to adjust to new time zones and conditions. This made Rybakina furious as she spoke out on her Instagram saying, “Performance bye. Thank you for changing the rules last moment.“ She concluded with, “Great decisions as always WTA.”

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