{"id":77289,"date":"2025-01-02T21:00:06","date_gmt":"2025-01-03T02:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=77289"},"modified":"2025-01-03T07:30:54","modified_gmt":"2025-01-03T12:30:54","slug":"elena-rybakina-coach-suspended-wta-tour-confirms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/01\/02\/elena-rybakina-coach-suspended-wta-tour-confirms\/","title":{"rendered":"Elena Rybakina’s Former Coach Suspended, WTA Tour Confirms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stefano Vukov, the former coach of World No. 6 Elena Rybakina, has been issued a provisional suspension by the WTA Tour just days after Rybakina announced Vukov would be re-joining her team<\/a> for the 2025 season, according to The Athletic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Vukov was provisionally suspended\u00a0due to a potential breach of the WTA Tour’s code of conduct. The suspension bans Vukov from receiving a WTA credential, leaving him unable to go to practice courts and player’s boxes during matches.<\/p>\n

Rybakina is currently participating in the United Cup and is scheduled to play in the Australian Open<\/a>, which begins Jan. 12.<\/p>\n

“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,” a spokesperson from the WTA Tour wrote in a statement. “We will not provide further details at this point in time.”<\/p>\n

The WTA launched the investigation last year following complaints regarding Vukov’s conduct. Fans and tennis coaches have often criticized Vukov for being overly harsh–some speculating abuse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Vukov denied any allegations of abuse in a text message, according to The Athletic<\/a>. The article also says that the WTA is soon expected to conclude its investigation into Vukov.<\/p>\n

Vukov coached Rybakina–the 25-year-old and 2022 Wimbledon Champion<\/a>–from 2019 to 2024. The pair parted ways after the 2024 US Open<\/a>, and Rybakina would later hire Goran Ivanesevic<\/a>, the former coach of Novak Djokovic. Rybakina won all of her eight WTA Tour titles while working with Vukov.<\/p>\n

Last September, Vukov was removed from the WTA Tour’s official coaching list, prompting confusion and concerns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Among those who have criticized Rybakina include tennis coach and ESPN analyst Pam Shriver, who publically criticized Vukov during the 2023 Australian Open<\/a>. She wrote in a Jan. 1 post to X that\u00a0“It\u2019s time for our entire sport to finally stand up to known abuse and cult like manipulations of players.” Shriver posted this hours after Rybakina announced Vukov would rejoin her team.<\/p>\n

\u201cHello everyone, I am excited to announce that Stefano will be joining the team for the 2025 season,” Rybakina’s announcement read. “Thank you all for the support. And wishing you a great 2025.”<\/p>\n

Rybakina did not clarify what role Vukov would have.\u00a0Ivanesevic, who has already coached Rybakina to three United Cup singles wins<\/a>, “was blindsided by Rybakina\u2019s announcement,” according to anonymous sources in The Athletic report.<\/p>\n

The Kazakh, who is due to play in the United Cup semifinal against Poland on Saturday, has not commented on the suspension as of Friday. During the 2024 WTA Finals, Rybakina suggested that her split with Vukov was not on bad terms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stefano Vukov, the former coach of World No. 6 Elena Rybakina, has been issued a provisional suspension by the WTA Tour just days after Rybakina announced Vukov would be re-joining her team for the 2025 season, according to The Athletic. Vukov was provisionally suspended\u00a0due to a potential breach of the WTA Tour’s code of conduct. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4624,"featured_media":62623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,2,4],"tags":[205,5595,42610],"class_list":["post-77289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","category-wta","tag-australian-open","tag-elena-rybakina","tag-stefano-vukov"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4624"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77289"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77298,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77289\/revisions\/77298"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}