Goran Ivanisevic publicly confirmed that his split with Elena Rybakina was motivated by off-court stuff and he described it as both "strange and sad."
Only a day after the Kazakh lost to Madison Keys in the Australian Open round-of-16, the Croatian tennis legend announced he was departing her team through a short Instagram announcement. However, not many were surprised by that move even though their collaboration ended after only two tournaments.
After Rybakina stunningly returned Stefano Vukov - who was under a WTA investigation - to her team at the start of 2025, reports started emerging that Ivanisevic was left "blindsided."And not only that, he apparently learned about it through social media as everybody else and that he didn't sign up for that. At that point, it seemed obvious that he would leave the world No. 8 after the Australian swing.
Shortly after, the WTA's investigation into Vukov concluded and one of the things it reportedly found was that the 2022 Wimbledon champion was in a romantic relationship with the 37-year-old.
Ivanisevic on the Rybakina split: I didn't want to be a part of some things
"Now I'm on a bit of a forced vacation or on the stock market... It was a bit strange... I won't talk much about it, but I can say that it's a bit of a sad and strange story. I considered her, even before I became her coach, at least for me, as the best female tennis player in the world. She plays the most beautiful game, the simplest, and I really enjoyed it," the 2001 Wimbledon winner said during his appearance on TV Arena Sport's Neuspjeh Prvaka podcast.
"Unfortunately, some things happened off the court that I couldn't control and I didn't want to be a part of that and part of that story, and then I decided that it was best to walk away. I wish her all the best in her career."
The WTA investigation also found multiple evidence that Vukov was verbally abusive toward Rybakina and he is currently serving a one-year suspension.
