Elena Rybakina has won three of four majors and only needs Roland Garros for a career Grand Slam. Asked in New York on Saturday night if that would be the target for 2027, he responded with a calendar and a body, not a trophy.
“The main priority, as I said before, I’m not getting any younger, I tried to keep healthy and definitely chose the right calendar, training course,” said the 27-year-old young man. “Of course the goal is always the biggest tournaments, you want to win them, so the Grand Slams and just try to find balance, try to be consistent. We’ll see what happens, but there’s definitely a lot of work to be done. The deed was never done, to be honest.”
The specialty he lacks is one he never mastered
Roland Garros is awkward. He reached the quarter-finals there twice, in 2021 and 2024, and never went further, making it the only Grand Slam tournament in which he did not play in the semifinals. This year, she lost in the second round to Yulia Starodubtseva, the same player she defeated 7-6 (6), 6-3 in the third round en route to this title.
I feel young, but my body doesn’t completely go away over the years. Some questions remain.
The surface is not the obstacle it seems. Her second title of the season came on Stuttgart soil, where she beat Karolina Muchova in the final. But completing a set would mean going deeper in a tournament where he has consistently gone the least far.
The answer to health is not abstract either. He made his Cincinnati quarterfinal against Iga Sviatek 23 days before winning the US Open. There was no tennis in the plan for a week. “Seven days I just went from my hotel room to the gym, spent three hours there, a lot of recovery, treatment.”
He had already presented a longer version of the same argument two weeks earlier at the age of 27. “I feel young, but some things don’t go away completely as my body ages.” Some problems remain.”
He begins this journey on Monday as the world No. 1 for the first time.