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Kazakhstani Elena Rybakina, who is the world number six player currently in women’s tennis, has had her former coach Stefano Vukov provisionally suspended for allegedly breaching WTA Code of Conduct during their time with each other. The decision from the governing body of women’s tennis came after Rybakina had announced that Vukov, who had guided her to a Wimbledon win in 2022, is re-joining her team ahead of the Australian Open.
Notably, as per the report from BBC Sport, there is no confirmation about who raised the complaint against Stefano Vukov to the WTA, which led to investigation beginning about his behaviour on tour. There have been concerns raised about Stefano Vukov’s behaviour towards Elena Rybakina in recent seasons in regard to how he talks to her both on and off the court at tournaments around the world.
He never mistreated me or it was never anything like that: Rybakina on Vukov
While Stefano Vukov has denied any wrongdoing, WTA released a statement about the investigation into his behaviour, which was looked upon as quite a surprise. They wrote, “While the WTA does not typically comment on active investigations, we believe it is necessary to clarify this matter due to recent public statements that misrepresent the situation. We will not provide further details at this point in time.”
Because of the provisional suspension, Stefano Vukov won’t be receiving accreditation for any sort of WTA events, which means that he isn’t going to be allowed to access the player-only areas. Meanwhile, in her first response to Vukov being provisionally suspended, Rybakina stated that he has never mistreated her, while such a situation never came to be.
Elena Rybakina was quoted as saying, as per Tennis365.com, “Well, I’m working with Goran, and these articles came out, I mean, I can only say and I said it already before that he never mistreated me or it was never anything like that. I mean, I’m working with Goran. I’m happy with the way we work now for the couple of weeks. As I also said, that Stefano is rejoining the team because I know the person for six years, and there is a lot of things we can do outside of the court too.”
