BEIJING — Elena Rybakina will compete in a tournament as both the World No. 1 and the top seed simultaneously for the first time in her career.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fresh off a third Grand Slam title at the US Open — where she captured the No. 1 ranking and booked her ticket<\/a> to the WTA Finals at Indian Wells — Rybakina will be the China Open’s top seed and will play Armenia’s Alina Charaeva in Saturday’s second round.\u00a0<\/p>\n The immediate goal for Rybakina is to keep that No. 1 next to her name for the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n Looking foward, she’d love to get a Roland Garros title to complete the Career Slam.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I mean, now I’m No. 1, which is great,” Rybakina said during her media day press conference Thursday. “Still it’s not end of the season. I would like to push and finish at No. 1.Who knows what’s going to happen. It’s a lot of good players, a lot of tough opponents. Anything can change. That’s the goal for now.”<\/p>\n Since winning the US Open on Sept. 12, it’s been a event-filled couple of weeks that’s made it a “very quick turnaround” for Rybakina. The day after, she embarked on a New York City media tour, appearing on the sets of “CBS Mornings” and “Today” by NBC<\/a> before jetting off back to Europe and Asia for more celebratory festivities ahead of Beijing.<\/p>\n Notably, Rybakina was welcomed by the President of Slovakia, Peter Pellegrini<\/a>, in the Presidential Palace in the capital, Bratislava, where she often trains and spends time. Furthermore, the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, hosted Rybakina at the Akorda Residence in the capital, Astana<\/a>.<\/p>\n In Astana, Rybakina was awarded Kazakhstan’s Order of Barys, third degree, for her sporting achievements and contribution to the development and promotion of Kazakhstani tennis.<\/p>\n “Well, since it’s been a lot of traveling also, I passed by Bratislava [and] then I went to Kazakhstan,” Rybakina said. “I did some commitments which I had to do. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to also do different stuff which I wanted — with the kids, some clinics. I spent very nice time in the house resting, relaxing. It’s been a good time.”<\/p>\n Rybakina is the first player to represent Kazakhstan to become a World No. 1, and when asked what the mentality of a top ranked player should be, she didn’t have a specific answer and rather explained it’s about enjoying the moment while she can.<\/p>\n “I have no idea. I just [became] No. 1. I feel like the most important is to enjoy. It’s not easy always. For that I have people around me. Sometimes I can be down or up, it’s important to enjoy,” Rybakina said.<\/p>\n She’s now settled Beijing, where’s partaken in a few practice sessions after primarily focusing on her rest and recovery. For a bit now, Rybakina has been dealing with a lingering foot issue, and Thursday, she admitted she felt it a little bit during training but was the first practice in Beijing that she did feel it slightly.<\/p>\n “Since I was resting, my foot was a bit better,” Rybakina said. “Now I’m back on the court, I still feel here and there. Again, I try to push myself, see how far I can go in this tournament.<\/p>\n “Mentally, I think that now I’m better. It’s been a lot of things after US Open definitely. I’m ready.”<\/p>\n Rybakina will face Charaeva, who defeated Yuliia Starodubtseva 5-7, 7-5, 6-2 in the first round. In two previous Beijing appearances, Rybakina’s finishes were the semifinals in 2023 and third round in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BEIJING — Elena Rybakina will compete in a tournament as both the World No. 1 and the top…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":916709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593,5452],"class_list":["post-916708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/916709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}