It is no secret that Elena Rybakina prefers to let her tennis do the talking.
Few will have forgotten the 24-year-old Kazakhstani’s impassive response to winning Wimbledon two summers ago, when she ambled to the net to shake hands with nary a smile, although plenty seem to have forgotten how she dissolved into tears at her press conference afterwards.
A woman of contrasts and contradictions, Rybakina hits big, but speaks softly. She commands attention with her percussive power, yet retreats into her shell once the final ball has been struck. Shyness, however, should not be confused with weakness.
Like the similarly introverted Iga Swiatek, Rybakina is not afraid to speak out when occasion demands. At last year’s Canadian Open, she accused the WTA of “weak leadership” over scheduling issues that meant she had to battle until 3am to complete a quarter-final win over Daria Kasatkina. Rybakina was one of the first players to call out the shambolic organisation of last year’s WTA Finals in Cancún, and has been similarly strident in her criticism of the extended WTA 1000 format. She may be reserved, but she is no pushover.
On the court, Rybakina’s tennis has spoken volumes at this year’s French Open, much as it has done throughout a year that has brought three titles and 33 victories, a record bettered only by Swiatek. Rybakina has yet to drop a set in Paris, and on Saturday she continued her serene progress by calmly despatching Elise Mertens, twice reeling in the 27th-ranked Belgian from a break down in the first set before moving through the gears to win 6-4, 6-2.
Off court, however, Rybakina’s Roland Garros has been anything but serene. Facing the media has never been her favourite part of the day job, but time and experience have made her more forthcoming, and she is typically an engaging and unassuming interviewee. In Paris, though, Rybakina’s press briefings have been far from typical. Following her opening-round win over Greet Minnen, she gave short shrift to an innocuous question about her health and the effect of the court conditions, before adding: “I don’t know guys, the questions are quite the same, so I don’t know what to say any more.”
A brief but awkward silence followed, before the search for a more palatable line of inquiry began. Playing under the closed roof on Chatrier? “The same as previous years. Guys.” The key to winning the title? “It’s quite basic, you need to work hard, do all the things usually you don’t want to do. Simple questions, simple answers.” How about a few words on that distinctive beige kit; a custom number, perhaps? “These colours, I didn’t choose, it was the brand who chose for me,” Rybakina shot back as, somewhere in Tokyo, a Yonex sponsorship executive curled up into a ball and wept. And so it continued.
It should be said that Rybakina, while mildly exasperated, smiled as she addressed her interrogators. With the possible exception of a slight shake of the head after replying to one question, her tone was one of detached bemusement rather than rudeness. Nonetheless, the relationship between press and players is symbiotic. Journalists on deadline need quotes. Athletes need coverage to improve their profile and marketability. Without mutual goodwill, press conferences are a waste of everyone’s time. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Rybakina was not requested for interview by the media following her second-round win over Arantxa Rus. That in turn sparked a predictable social media storm, with opinion split fairly evenly between fans of rival players only too ready to condemn Rybakina for her part in the standoff, and those who believe that all journalists ask stupid questions, all of the time. It fell to Ellen Perez, the Australian doubles specialist, to offer a more nuanced take.
“Do I think her answers were great? No,” Perez wrote on social media. “Do I think some of the questions were mundane? Sure. Do I think some of the questions were fine? Sure. Do I think the journos are being petty? Absolutely. Do I think she’s happy now? Yep.”
All of which would be fine, if Rybakina were indeed happy. But as she returned to the press room after her win over Mertens, the Kazakhstani was hardly a picture of joy. For a couple of minutes, it all went swimmingly. Then she punctuated an answer with the rider, “Always, the question is being healthy” – at which point, things started to go downhill.
Rybakina’s health issues, the latest of which came when she withdrew from last month’s WTA 100 event in Rome with illness, are well documented. She struggles with allergies at this time of year, and last season was forced to pull out of the French Open before her third-round match after struggling to sleep and suffering from fever, headache and breathing issues. Most athletes are guarded when discussing injury or illness, and Rybakina is no different. No player wants to give their next opponent the skinny on their physical state. All the same, she could be forgiven for feeling that she has offered enough context on the situation in the past to render further questions redundant.
That said, Rybakina was the one who raised the issue of her health. The enquiries that followed can hardly have come as a shock. First up was the obvious question: exactly how healthy was she, following her withdrawal from Rome? “Struggling a bit with sleep,” came the answer, but otherwise “feeling pretty well and focused.” Had she undertaken any tests to explore the deeper reasons for her problems? “No,” she said with a wan smile. So what was the issue with sleep? “Everybody when they work a lot, it’s not easy to sleep and then the recovery is not the greatest,” Rybakina replied evasively, her discomfort evident as she glanced at the moderator.
At that point, it would probably have been smart for everyone simply to cut their losses. Instead, two further questions about Rybakina’s sleeping problems followed, both of which drew terse replies, before we arrived back at square one.
“Well guys, I think everybody faces some issues, it can be anything,” said Rybakina. “So I don’t know what to answer on that.”
Given that her first-round press conference also got off on the wrong foot following a question about her health, it should not be beyond the wit of man or woman to make an educated guess at what is bothering Rybakina. If she doesn’t wish to discuss her health every time she faces the media, there is little to be gained by pressing her on the issue, particularly with the facts already on public record. Three years after Naomi Osaka boycotted the French Open media before withdrawing from the tournament on mental health grounds, the need for empathy should be uppermost in the minds of all.
Equally, Rybakina must be as wary of unforced errors in the press room as she is between the white lines. A question may feel intrusive, or repetitive, but ultimately the media are there to promote a deeper understanding of the players. It is up to Rybakina to choose what face she wishes to present to the world.