Elena Rybakina is officially the new world No 10 and she is the first Kazakh player ever to break into the top-10. Following her runner-up finish at the Australian Open, Rybakina went from No 25 to No 10 in the world. Last summer, Rybakina captured her maiden Grand Slam title at Wimbledon.
At the time of her Wimbledon run, Rybakina was ranked just outside the top-20 in the world. But since the WTA sanctioned Wimbledon by not rewarding any points for the 2022 tournament, Rybakina didn’t make a strong ranking jump.
Had Wimbledon points counted, Rybakina would have been the world No 6 after The Championships. Six months later, the justice has been served and Rybakina is finally a top-10 player.
Rybakina on breaking into the top-10
After losing the Australian Open final to Aryna Sabalenka, Rybakina was asked how she felt about breaking into the top-10 for the first time in her career.
“I don’t think tomorrow I’m going to feel different just because of the ranking now. But, I mean, for sure it’s going to be different on the smaller tournaments, I would say. I’m going to be seeded. Maybe in some tournaments I’m not going to play first round.
So of course there is some benefits out of this. But for sure I don’t really look for the numbers ranking so much,” Rybakina said after the Australian Open final, when asked about breaking into the top-10 for the first time in her career.
Interestingly, Rybakina is listed in the qualifying of the upcoming Doha event. This year’s Doha player field is stacked with top players and even Rybakina, who was ranked just outside the top-20 at the time of the main draw cut, didn’t make the main draw cut.
However, it should be noted that Rybakina will certainly receive a Doha main draw wildcard.
My God, Doha’s WTA 500 list is absolutely RIDICULOUS with just two top 20 players missing (Sakkari and Halep).
Rybakina, Krejcikova, Azarenka, Andreescu, Fernandez, Muguruza & more in… qualifying ð¤¯ð¤¯ pic.twitter.com/2Grvfabuiz — José Morgado (@josemorgado) January 28, 2023
But now that Rybakina is a top-10 player, she will have no problems entering any tournaments.
