Chesnokov spoke about the contribution of Russia and Kazakhstan to the career of Rybakina

The semi-finalist of Roland Garros in 1989 and the winner of two tournaments of the Masters series Andrey Chesnokov spoke about working with Elena Rybakina, and also answered a question about the disputes between Russia and Kazakhstan over the athlete.

Rybakina was born in Moscow and until June 2018 played for Russia. After that, she received Kazakh citizenship.

– There are a lot of nuances in this issue. I have worked with her for a while. She started at Spartak with Evgenia Kulikovskaya.

What I saw in my presence – all the money that the parents had, they invested in their daughter. Maybe she trained in Russia, but the money that was invested in her was either a person, a sponsor who helped her a little, or people who believed in her.

If you look now, who is she – a Russian woman or is she more from Kazakhstan? Today she is from Kazakhstan. She was Russian, changed her citizenship. Plays under the flag of Kazakhstan, shows incredible results. It happened.

There is, for example, tennis player Mary Pierce – her father is from Canada, but she became French and won the Roland Garros as a French citizen.

I started working with Rybakina when she was in the 600th place in the world. I came to the Kremlin Cup and saw how she qualified. Then I saw a player who would potentially play. If she were Russian or Australian, then the player was already potentially brilliant. I was talking about this back then, 4-5 years ago, when we worked together for a bit.

These conversations are about whether she would be in Russia. Now she plays like a player not like the top 10 in the world, but the top 3. Potentially, this is a player who can win all the Grand Slams,” Chesnokov quotes Vprognoze.ru.

In the semi-finals of the Australian Open, Rybakina defeated Belarusian Victoria Azarenka. For the trophy, a native of Moscow will compete with Arina Sobolenko from Belarus.