Elena Rybakina claimed her team had \u201ca lot going on\u201d as she appeared to allude to controversy surrounding coach Stefano Vukov following her Australian Open triumph.<\/p>\n
World No 5 Rybakina<\/a> captured her second Grand Slam singles title in Melbourne on Saturday, battling past world No 1 and title favourite Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> in a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 triumph inside the Rod Laver Arena.<\/p>\n Victory for the Kazakh saw her end her wait for a second major title, three and a half years after her Wimbledon triumph in 2022, and will see her return to her career-high of world No 3 in the WTA Rankings.<\/p>\n Among those recognised during the trophy ceremony on Saturday night was Rybakina\u2019s coach, Vukov<\/a>, with the Croatian having also coached the Kazakh to her Wimbledon triumph three years.<\/p>\n As part of a new tradition at the Australian Open, the coach of both the women\u2019s and men\u2019s singles champions will receive a trophy on court.<\/p>\n However, Vukov\u2019s presence in the 26-year-old\u2019s team remains a significant controversy, with the Croatian having been suspended for six months in 2025.<\/p>\n Vukov was provisionally suspended for allegedly breaking the WTA Tour\u2019s Code of Conduct in January 2025, the news emerging after he had returned to Rybakina\u2019s team following a brief split.<\/p>\n He was barred from entering the Australian Open site in 2025 during his provisional suspension, and a year-long ban was then confirmed in February 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n Jannik Sinner and Alexander Zverev\u2019s Australian Open prize money & ranking points revealed<\/a><\/p>\n Novak Djokovic sticks it to \u2018doubters\u2019 and has a message for Carlos Alcaraz ahead of Australian Open final<\/a><\/p>\n Vukov returned to Rybakina\u2019s on-site entourage in August 2025 after successfully appealing his ban<\/a>, though he had remained working with the Kazakh outside of tournaments.<\/p>\n The Kazakh\u2019s form has notably improved since the return of Vukov, winning the Ningbo Open and WTA Finals towards the end of 2025, before her triumph in Melbourne on Saturday.<\/p>\n Rybakina has always claimed that Vukov \u201cnever mistreated\u201d her<\/a>, and then claimed after reaching the Australian Open final that his return had been a \u201cbig help\u201d for her game<\/a>.<\/p>\n And, during her champion\u2019s speech inside the Rod Laver Arena on Saturday, she appeared to allude to the controversy when thanking her team.<\/p>\n She said: \u201cI would like to say thank you to my team. Without you, it wouldn\u2019t be possible, really.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a lot of things going on, and I\u2019m really glad we achieved this result. Thank you to all of you, and hopefully we can keep going strong this year.\u201d<\/p>\n Vukov\u2019s presence in Rybakina\u2019s entourage remains controversial for some, but victory in Melbourne most likely cements his place in her team for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n The Kazakh is now the reigning champion at two of the five biggest tournaments in tennis and, with a return to her career-high ranking set for next Monday, appears to be playing some of the best tennis of her career.<\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n Read Next<\/strong>: Elena Rybakina and Aryna Sabalenka\u2019s Australian Open prize money & ranking points revealed<\/a><\/p>\n The post Australian Open: Awkward moment as Elena Rybakina\u2019s coach receives trophy and champion alludes to controversy<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Elena Rybakina claimed her team had \u201ca lot going on\u201d as she appeared to allude to controversy surrounding coach Stefano Vukov following her Australian Open triumph. World No 5 Rybakina captured her second Grand Slam singles title in Melbourne on Saturday, battling past world No 1 and title favourite Aryna Sabalenka in a 6-4, 4-6, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1690\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tennis News<\/h2>\n