Kasatkina spoiled Rybakina's return to the court after the triumph at Wimbledon

Elena is out of shape after a wild celebration of her sensational victory at the London Grand Slam.

Russian Daria Kasatkina slightly dampened the enthusiasm about the success in women's tennis playing for Kazakhstan Elena Rybakina. At the very first tournament after the triumph at Wimbledon, Stefano Vukov's ward flew out in the first round, and earned the "steering wheel" in the decisive third set. All this, of course, does not mean that Kasatkina would have won the London Major if she had been allowed there. But for Daria, defeating such a rival in the current situation is a great opportunity to improve morale and take a step towards fulfilling a big sporting task in San Jose. After all, this week in California, Kasatkina has to defend the points earned a year ago for reaching the final.

Return to sports tone

Let me remind you that after the success of Rybakina in London, a big discussion broke out in the Russian tennis community about whether Elena, who played for Russia until the age of 18, can be considered a “product of our school”? Or is her grandiose progress solely the result of the work of the Kazakhstani federation, which provided the tennis player with the necessary conditions for development, which was not in our country? The question was also raised: was it not a fatal mistake to allow Elena to move to Kazakhstan, because tennis professionals should have assessed her potential in advance? All these disputes have not yet led to unambiguous conclusions. But now another important question arises: will Rybakina be able to go through copper pipes - cope with pressure, with her new star status and win further?

• I played well in the first set, and then the conditions changed a little, I think, first of all in physical terms. In the end, I lost all my focus, - the Kazakhstani athlete admitted after losing to Kasatkina. - The match was really difficult for me. Of course, it was a tough week after Wimbledon. I had to do a lot of things, I spent a lot of time traveling. That was not easy. I didn't have time to prepare for the season on hard. But I wanted to come to San Jose to get back in shape and get game practice. There are a lot of great players here, and I knew that in the first round I could face someone from the top ten, like Dasha. Last year she played here in the final. But I'm just glad I'm back on the court. I hope that I will continue to play even better.

By the way, for Kasatkina, the current moment in her career is also not the easiest. In fact, she played the first official match after scandalous confessions about her sexual orientation and other ambiguous statements in an interview. After that, not only words of support were addressed to her, but also a very serious hatred - it came to calls to bring the first racket of Russia to criminal liability. In general, there were also enough opportunities to lose game concentration. But, as we can see, Daria made an impressive comeback in the first round match in San Jose and seems to be coping with her nerves. In the next round, our girl's opponent will be American Taylor