Elena Rybakina’s uncomplicated game wins a Wimbledon full of complexities

“Someone tell her she just won Wimbledon,” bellowed John McEnroe on commentary. Elena Rybakina, after a feisty performance in her first ever Grand Slam final, had followed it up with possibly the most subdued celebration seen in recent years.

She celebrated her 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 win over Ons Jabeur in the Wimbledon final on Saturday with a low-key pump of a fist, then shook hands with her opponent and the umpire and headed straight to her bench. The statuesque 23-year-old allowed herself a small smile before she, almost as an afterthought, strode to her box and hugged members of her team.

“I was super nervous before the match, during the match and I’m happy it’s finished to be honest,” Rykabina said during the presentation. She may have made for an awkward champion, but Rybakina was a damn good one.

Ironically, the Moscow-born player also became a Wimbledon champion in a year the Championships banned Russians due to the Ukraine war . While announcing their decision to bar Russians and Belarusians from Wimbledon 2022, the organisers, All England Club, had expressed concern over having a Russian lift the trophy when Vladimir Putin’s troops waged war in Ukraine. The ban had kept men’s World No 1 Daniil Medvedev, World No 8 Andrey Rublev, women’s World No 6 Aryna Sabalenka and two-time major champion Victoria Azarenka away.

ALSO READ | Who is Elena Rybakina - the new Wimbledon champion

Officially though, Rybakina was playing under the Kazakhstan flag , which allowed her to enter Wimbledon despite being Russian. Rybakina switched nationalities in 2018 and has had the backing of the rich Kazakh Tennis Federation for the majority of her professional career. She has also represented the central Asian country at the Olympics and Billie Jean King Cup (formerly known as Fed Cup).

How Elena Rybakina got the job done on match point! #Wimbledonpic.twitter.com/t54jURSNwJ

— Firstpost Sports (@FirstpostSports) July 9, 2022

“I’m really happy representing Kazakhstan,” Rybakina, who reached a career high of 12 in January this year, said after her semi-final win over former champion Simona Halep.

“They believed in me. There is no more question about how I feel. It’s just already a long time, my journey as a Kazakh player. I was born in Russia, yes, but I’m representing Kazakhstan. I don’t know why we have to come back to this.”

Though she was asked about it, Rybakina shrugged off the geo-political complexities of her Wimbledon participation. After a year plagued by injury, she was just happy to be in a Grand Slam again. From there, the Kazakh let her hard-hitting, uncomplicated game do all the talking.

In Photos: Celebrities descend on Wimbledon’s Centre Court

Coming into Wimbledon, her best Grand Slam performance had been a quarter-final finish at the 2021 French Open. As the Kazakh admitted in the on-court interview , she would have been happy just to make to second week in London. But away from the spotlight, the No 17 seed started taking care of her side of the draw.

She defeated former US Open champion Bianca Andreescu in the second round, rallied from a set down against Ajla Tomljanovic in the quarterfinals and crushed an error-prone Simona Halep 6-3, 6-3 in the semi-final .

Saturday’s summit clash marked the first time in the Open Era that two women in their maiden Grand Slam finals were facing off. Jabeur, of Tunisia, and Rybakina were also the first from their respective countries to make it to a singles Grand Slam final.

Rybakina: "I was so nervous before the match, during the match and I'm just happy it's over. I never felt something like this"#Wimbledon Final Live: https://t.co/FmZekdakZp pic.twitter.com/bEtjRAGSb5

— Firstpost Sports (@FirstpostSports) July 9, 2022

But before the match, the odds seemed stacked in Jabeur’s favour. The popular Tunisian, who had declared herself the ‘Minister of Happiness’ , was riding the wave at Wimbledon. During the fortnight, she became the first Tunisian, first African and first Arab woman to make a major final. Her beguiling, versatile game made for a fascinating contrast to Rybakina’s power play.

And the 27-year-old Tunisian showcased her wide variety of skills in the opening set on a sun-baked Centre Court. The more experienced of the two, the third seed used her backhand slice and off-pace groundstrokes to unsettle her already-nervous opponent. With Ashleigh Barty, who won 2021 Wimbledon , choosing early retirement this year, Jabeur looked like a fitting stylistic successor, especially on grass.

But the 6-feet tall Rybakina wasn’t going to roll over. Her serve had taken her this far in the tournament, and she started wielding the weapon from the second set. Rybakina’s first ace of the match came after the one-hour mark but she finished with a total of four aces. That took her season total to a tour-leading 253 aces – none of the other players have even cracked 200.

The touch of a champion 🤌​

Elena Rybakina's cute winner is our Play of the Day#Wimbledon | @HSBC_Sport pic.twitter.com/Gz4pEaROD6

— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 9, 2022

One of the cleanest strikers in the women’s game, Rybakina also started to assert herself in the match with her big groundstrokes. She smartly kept hitting the ball into Jabeur’s forehand, which while solid doesn’t quite have the variety of her backhand strokes. As the match went on, the Kazakh also started anticipating the change-ups from Jabeur’s racquets, especially the drop shots.

Most importantly, though, it was Rybakina’s nerve that saw her through. She plotted breaks of serve in the first game of the second and third set to stay ahead. But the Kazakh also saved all the seven break points in the last two sets she faced while breaking the Jabeur serve twice in each set. Every time Jabeur sniffed an opportunity, she would shut it out with some big serving and cracking groundies. Rybakina finished with 29 winners and 33 unforced errors (17 of those came in the first set) while Jabeur made 17 winners and 24 unforced errors.

“In the final set Rybakina was hitting those marks well with her serve and just didn’t give anything away,” Martina Navratilova told the BBC. “She made all the shots she was supposed to make - and a little bit more as well.”

Rybakina’s demeanour during, and after, the match though may have been the key to her surprising run at Wimbledon. A non-demonstrative player, the Kazakh stayed on an even keel throughout, seemingly untouched by her opponents or the occasion. As if following the words of Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If, that are inscribed on the door of Centre Court: ‘If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same.’

In a truly chaotic Wimbledon, a composed Rybakina was the last woman standing.

Read all the  Latest News ****,  Trending News ****,  Cricket News ****,  Bollywood News ****,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ****,  Twitter  and  Instagram ****.