Elena Rybakina will make her first appearance since winning the Australian Open at the 2026 Qatar Open, and she has given an update on her fitness as she revealed she had been suffering from a cold.
The world No 3 is the second seed at the WTA 1000 tournament in Doha, where she will face either Wang Xinyu or Emiliana Arango in her opening match.
Rybakina pulled out of the WTA 500 event in Abu Dhabi last week having secured her second Grand Slam title at the Australian Open the previous week.
In her pre-tournament press conference in Doha, Rybakina was asked about her fitness.
“Of course, we tried to celebrate after the match a little bit with the team,” the Kazakh said.
“It’s been not much time since the Australian Open, but I had some time to rest. I think it’s good for me to start here, to still try to keep the momentum, and hopefully I can play well here.
“It was a long tournament in Australia, a lot of matches, and of course, a lot of emotions after. But I think we get used to this kind of schedule. We are from one tournament to go to play almost straight away another one, so it’s a bit tricky.
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“I had a cold, so I had to really rest a couple days and didn’t do much. But now, as I said, it’s a good momentum to try to keep going.
“Hopefully, this week is going to be as good in Australia, but if not, we have so many tournaments ahead, and there are big ones.”
Rybakina added: “We’ll see how I’m going to feel here and how the matches will go.
“It’s good practice no matter what. We’ll still try to work on some things with the team.
“I don’t put too much pressure or expectations, that’s for sure. But I definitely want to do well and we’ll see how it’s going to go day by day.”
The 26-year-old also compared how she felt after her Australian Open victory to when she won her maiden major at Wimbledon in 2022.
“At Wimbledon, it was really not expected,” Rybakina reflected. “I think I wasn’t really prepared that well.
“It was a lot of emotions, different ones, in Australia. I feel like it’s more of a job. I try to really prepare for each match differently. If I have time, we celebrate, but if we don’t, there’s a lot of tournaments ahead.”
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