{"id":38414,"date":"2026-02-01T02:23:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T02:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/australian-open-2026-elena-rybakina-returns-to-the-top-after-four-year-wait-for-second-major-title\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T02:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T02:23:09","slug":"australian-open-2026-elena-rybakina-returns-to-the-top-after-four-year-wait-for-second-major-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/australian-open-2026-elena-rybakina-returns-to-the-top-after-four-year-wait-for-second-major-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Open 2026: Elena Rybakina returns to the top after four-year wait for second major title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Almost four years have passed since Elena Rybakina celebrated winning Wimbledon by humbly raising her right arm in the air.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Maybe one day you will see huge reaction from me,&#8221; she told the crowd that day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But that is not the understated 26-year-old&#8217;s style.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After ending her wait for another Grand Slam trophy with victory at the Australian Open, the Kazakh simply clenched a raised fist and briefly shook her head in a mixture of relief and disbelief.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But her return to the level that took her to her breakthrough success hinted that she may now, at last, be ready to consistently create those moments worthy of big celebrations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">World number one Aryna Sabalenka and second-ranked Iga Swiatek have established themselves as the dominant players on the women&#8217;s tour over recent years, winning eight of the 13 slams since Rybakina&#8217;s Wimbledon triumph.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But Rybakina demonstrated her potential to bridge the gap by beating Sabalenka 6-4 4-6 6-4 in Saturday&#8217;s Melbourne showpiece, having also overpowered Swiatek and sixth seed Jessica Pegula on her way to the title.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I always believed I can come back to the level I was [but] we all have ups and downs,&#8221; Rybakina said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I thought maybe I will never again be in the final, or even get a trophy. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;But we&#8217;ve been putting in a lot of work as a team and in the moments when I was not that positive they would be helping out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;When you are getting big wins against top players, then you start to believe more and you get more confident.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/tennis\/articles\/cddgjnmd46qo?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Almost four years have passed since Elena Rybakina celebrated winning Wimbledon by humbly raising her right arm in the air. &#8220;Maybe one day you will see huge reaction from me,&#8221; she told the crowd that day. But that is not the understated 26-year-old&#8217;s style. After ending her wait for another Grand Slam trophy with victory [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38414"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38416,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38414\/revisions\/38416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}