By Shrivathsa Sridhar
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Former Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina said on Saturday she had not complained about her former coach Stefano Vukov before his provisional suspension by the governing body of women’s tennis for a potential code of conduct breach.
Rybakina split with Vukov in August, just days ahead of the U.S. Open, before appointing Goran Ivanisevic in November but added her long-time coach back into her team this month.
Vukov, who is currently being investigated by the WTA and cannot obtain a credential to its tournaments, denies wrongdoing and told The Athletic he “never abused anyone” after the outlet first reported the provisional ban.
“I don’t agree with a lot of things the WTA do in the sense of my relationship with Stefano,” Rybakina told reporters ahead of the Australian Open, which begins on Sunday.
“I have never made any complaints or any of these things. I always said that he never mistreated me.
“I don’t really want to speak about this any more. I want to focus on my matches here.”
Rybakina, who won the 2022 Wimbledon title under Vukov, did not specify his role in her team and said that it was unfair of the tennis community to be commenting on the situation.
“I’m not happy with the whole situation, especially when still some coaches are making some comments and the people who aren’t so close to the tennis world, they see the comments and they’re picking it up, making even more of a show out of this,” she added.
“I don’t think it’s fair. But as I said, my goal is here to focus on the matches. This is what I’m going to do.”
The 2023 Melbourne Park runner-up begins her campaign against 16-year-old Australian Emerson Jones.
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Melbourne; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
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