Chesnokov spoke about the contribution of Russia and Kazakhstan to Rybakina’s career

1989 Roland Garros semi-finalist and winner of two Masters Series tournaments Andrey Chesnokov spoke about working with Elena Rybakina and also answered the question about the disputes between Russia and Kazakhstan over the athlete.

Rybakina was born in Moscow and until June 2018 played for Russia. After that, she received Kazakh citizenship.

– There are many nuances in this question. I worked with her for a while. She started in Spartak with Evgenia Kulikovskaya.

What I saw in my presence – all the money the parents had, they invested in their daughter. Maybe she trained in Russia, but the money that was invested in her was either a person, a sponsor who helped her a little, or people who believed in her.

If you look now, who is she – a Russian woman or is she from Kazakhstan? Today she comes from Kazakhstan. She was Russian, changed nationality. Plays under the flag of Kazakhstan, shows incredible results. It happened.

There is, for example, tennis player Mary Pierce – her father is Canadian, but she became French and won Roland Garros as a French citizen.

I started working with Rybakina when she was ranked 600th in the world. I came to the Kremlin Cup and saw how she qualified. Then I saw a player who would potentially play. If she was Russian or Australian, then the player was already potentially brilliant. I was talking about it at the time, 4-5 years ago, when we worked a bit together.

These conversations are about whether she would be in Russia. Now she plays like a player, not like the top 10 in the world, but the top 3. Potentially, she is a player who can win all the Grand Slam tournaments,” Chesnokov quotes Vprognoze.ru.

In the semifinals of the Australian Open, Rybakina defeated Belarusian Victoria Azarenka. For the trophy, a native of Moscow will compete with Arina Sobolenko from Belarus.

A source:

Vprognoze.ru