Elena Rybakina: The Andreeva Losses as They Are

Like it or not, Rybakina has already logged one-third of the matches of a season that defined her work rate over the past three years.

It doesn’t take two consecutive losses to Mirra Andreeva to recognize the turbulence in Elena Rybakina’s game right now. Expectations were tempered heading into the Indian Wells Round of 16—Andreeva had already troubled Rybakina in Beijing 18 months ago as a 16-year-old, edged her out in Dubai two weeks ago with a composed comeback, and this time, dismantled her in Indian Wells. The loss ended Rybakina’s streak of seven consecutive WTA 1000 Round of 16 wins, the longest active run at the level as of this Wednesday, while also delaying her 50th career Tour quarterfinal appearance.

In truth, the first defeat in the Dubai semifinals offered a clearer picture of Rybakina’s serving struggles (the second one, by contrast, felt like an unraveling, every aspect of her game bleeding into a state of disarray). Her serve hasn’t simply declined in efficiency—it has lost its authority. At its best, Rybakina’s serve is an instrument of control, dictating rallies before they begin. Now, it barely makes any line-breaking impact in key moments. There will always be those who point to a 90% first-serve win rate against Rebecca Šramková, clutch match-point saves against Paula Badosa, or a flurry of 17 aces against Sofia Kenin as signs that the serve is still there. But when it mattered, like in the deciding set of that first Andreeva loss, it was clear none of those stats could paper over the cracks.

To some extent, Rybakina’s losses this season have been logical on paper. Madison Keys and Belinda Bencic are notoriously difficult for aggressive players to handle, outpacing in first-strike battles and dominating short parts, while Iga Świątek and Andreeva represent a slower, more tempered but equally compact neutralization. Notably, all four rank in the Top 10 of the Live Race to Riyadh, making these defeats more understandable than, say, losing to Clara Burel in straights at the 2022 US Open.

A troubling pattern persists: opponents have decoded Rybakina’s serve so adeptly that her service-point win percentage diminishes the shorter the rallies, a paradox for a player whose game orbits around this strength. This stems partly from perceived narrowing serve patterns and eroding confidence to deploy them throughout the match, especially when frontrunning. Imagine the psyche of a server once dominant, now confronting the existential dread that her toss no longer unleashes a weapon, aren’t codes to unlock a match, but simply objects of random fate.

Not placed, not delivered. Just chaos in motion.

Sometimes I do wonder if age subtly chips away her efficacy. I won’t go there yet, but the history of stylistically similarly profiled servers whispers some parallels

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If there’s anything to remember from the first two months of this season, Rybakina can pat herself on the back for her presence on the court. She has yet to withdraw from a tournament this year, a rare feat given the fitness issues that clouded her last season. Her tiebreak record stands at 5-1 to date, just one win short of matching her total from 2024. Mentally, she’s still fighting: her break points saved percentage has actually increased from 62.6% before the Miami Open last year to 64.0% this season, though this respectable 1.4% edge is dwarfed by the fact that she’s facing 26% more break points per service game (0.62, up from 0.49).

In a Red Bull interview, Rybakina likened tennis to chess, a game of anticipating opponents’ moves. This comparison, echoing her cool, calculated approach, recurs frequently. Yet beneath the veneer of technical precision lies a wild, almost anarchic joy in the mental skirmishes that tennis stages, a joy rooted in unpredictability. It was this very unpredictability that once propelled her, a scrappy, bus-riding 16- or 17-year-old unmoored by structured guidance, to carve her solitary path through the ITF circuit.

It would be a mistake to assume that her widely acclaimed “icy cool” persona, almost a trademark now, fully encapsulates the person behind the racket. That detached cool comes at a cost; it drains an inner reservoir, leaving her raw and exposed when pushed too far.

I often recall her 2023 Australian Open third-round match against Danielle Collins. Though it may not rank among the season’s marquee moments—the Round of 16 win in Melbourne over Świątek and the finals at Indian Wells and Rome will always stand as higher peaks in terms of both quality and significance—Collins, with her ferocity and knack for dismantling rhythm (her extreme first-serve returns would have Rybakina taste more poignance in the Miami Open in the following year), forced a volatile three-set crucible.

At the end of the second set, her serve wavered at pressure points despite holding steady for most of it, exposing the tension between her carefully cultivated cool and the turmoil beneath. The frustration of surrendering a set laid bare a deeper fear of vulnerability, unrelenting scrutiny, and the risk of showing emotion only to meet disappointment. Yet, the moment she let go of that rigid detachment, she found the calm she had been chasing all along. With glacial precision, she recalibrated with shortening backswings to absorb Collins’ relentless aggression, flattening angles to redirect pace, seasoning unexpected spins to her serves, and clawing back breaks with an almost Zen-like refusal to yield momentum.

In retrospect, that match burned with a pale yet vivid fire.

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Securing 15 wins out of 21 matches in what some call a “disappointing” season kindles hope. Perhaps as outsiders are still bemoaning the excruciatingly painful sting of the losses, Lena has been deciphering how to nurture faith in uncertainty, to persevere when shadows lengthen, and how to believe—not in guarantees, but in the quiet (and at times not-so-quiet) resolve to continue.