“Announce her as new member of the PTPA” – Elena Rybakina’s coach tagging PTPA leads fans requesting Novak Djokovic to bring the Kazakh into their association as WTA continues to feel the heat from fans

Elena Rybakina's coach stands in support of her after WTA incurred new rule that saw her get stripped off the performance bye in the first round of the Tokyo Open

“Announce her as new member of the PTPA” – Elena Rybakina’s coach tagging PTPA leads fans requesting Novak Djokovic to bring the Kazakh into their association as WTA continues to feel the heat from fans

Novak Djokovic(left), Elena Rybakina and Stefano Vukov(right). (credits: Tennis Tonic, HITC)

World No. 3 Elena Rybakina has recently sparked great controversy in the minds of many tennis fans after her mistreatment by the WTA at the Japan Open. She was seeded third at the competition, and despite that, she didn’t receive any sort of performance bye in the first round, but fourth-seed and fifth-seed Maria Sakkari and Jessica Pegula had thereby received the advantage. 

After bashing the WTA for their new rule after the draw was released, she received a lot of support throughout the world. But just before her first-round matchup against Kalinina, she decided to pull away from the tournament, citing her fitness as the reason behind the decision. 

YouTube video

Her coach, Stefano Vukov penned down a post in support of Elena saying, “Just to make things clear, there is no explanation of what a performance bye is. What does does this mean? do we add byes to help performing players?”

FS Video

He also tagged Novak Djokovic‘s PTPA in order to take note of the situation. He wrote, “Last year we came from a final in Europe and played in Japan 2 days later and performance byes were nowhere to be found. The issue is always the same of communication. This will also apply from Tokyo 500 to Beijing 1000 next week. 4 performance byes will be awarded.

He further added, “The marketing is terrible as you can all see Elena qualified weeks ago, and just yesterday @wta decided to post something. We need transparency. All players need to understand what is going on. Stop blaming players for mistakes by the system itself. @ptpaplayers.”

Also Read: Maria Sharapova breaks the hearts of fans by admitting to not missing the sport as she attends the opening day of the US Open 2023

Who is Elena Rybakina’s coach, Stefano Vukov?

During Elena’s training days at the Spartak Tennis Club, she met Stefano Vukov during the year 2019 after being in touch with coaches like Andrey Chesnokov and Evgenia Kulikovskaya. It’s been almost four long years, but the two are still intact and going strong. Vukov is a former Croatian tennis player who played and featured in the ITF tournaments and the ITF Futures Tour.

Elena Rybakina along with her coach Stefano Vukov. (credits: Twitter/X)

Sharing a wide spectrum of reactions online, here’s what fans had to say:

Vukov won a total of 12 tennis tournaments, which included the ITF, ATP, and the Davis Cup. He could only achieve a career-high singles ranking of 1122 in his career, and considering his own career, he has brought Rybakina a long way to the top of women’s tennis.

Elena, under his guidance, went on to achieve a total of five singles career titles, with a Wimbledon Championship already under her belt.  

In case you missed it: