Elena Rybakina began 2026 with real momentum, and for a while she looked well placed to mount a serious challenge for the top of the WTA Rankings. She opened the season by winning the Australian Open, defeating Aryna Sabalenka in the final, then added the Sunshine Double and later the Stuttgart Open in April.

Those results drew her closer to Sabalenka at No 1 and created a clear path for her to overtake her rival. At the French Open, however, Rybakina missed that chance when she suffered a surprise second-round loss to Yuliia Starodubtseva.

Wimbledon offered another opening, especially after Sabalenka’s quarter-final exit in Paris had kept the race within reach. Yet Rybakina again fell short of expectations at a major, this time going out in the third round to Elise Mertens. That was enough to leave former world No 11 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova puzzled.

“I’m very disappointed that Rybakina loses relatively early in Slams, because she’s world No 2 and she has a real chance to become No 1 for the first time, the gap is small,” the Russian – who reached the quarter-final at Wimbledon in 2016 and 2025 – told Tennis Bolshe.

“Maybe that also puts pressure on her, because I think at Roland Garros all she needed was to win a couple of matches, and she couldn’t. Maybe clay isn’t her surface, but grass – that was strange.”

Rybakina’s route to No 1 is still open, but the margin remains tight. Sabalenka’s quarter-final defeat at the grass-court Grand Slam has left the pair separated by just 407 points heading into the North American swing. Sabalenka has 2215 points to defend over the next two months, including 2,000 at the US Open and quarter-final points from Cincinnati.

Rybakina, meanwhile, has 1,215 points to defend, though she will not add to that total at next week’s Washington Open, where she has chosen not to play. Later in the season, she also faces 1,500 points to defend at the WTA Finals after winning the event undefeated last year.

Novak Djokovic has revisited the advice he once gave Jannik Sinner after a match, and with a grin acknowledged that he may have “made a mistake” by helping a rival who has since become a difficult opponent to solve.

The discussion comes after Sinner’s impressive 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 win over Djokovic in the Wimbledon semi-finals earlier this month. That result strengthened the Italian’s edge in their rivalry, taking the head-to-head to 7-5 in Sinner’s favour. He has now won six of the last seven meetings, while Djokovic had taken four of their first five.

The pair first met in the quarter-finals of the 2022 Wimbledon Championships, when Djokovic came through 5-7, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2. That match later became the backdrop for a revealing conversation between Djokovic and Darren Cahill, who had joined Sinner’s coaching team shortly before Wimbledon in 2022.

Last year on Andy Roddick’s Served podcast, Cahill explained how Djokovic spoke candidly about the Italian’s game when approached for his thoughts. “I saw Novak, and he’s always great with this, he’s always been incredible when you tap him on the shoulder,” said Cahill. “And I said, ‘Hey listen, I’ve just started with Jannik, don’t tell me anything you don’t want to tell me, but can I ask what you were feeling out there?’ And he was incredible.

“He basically said, ‘Hey listen. Good luck with working with him. Hits the ball great, but there’s no variation. So you know, there’s no shape on his shot. There’s no height over the net. Doesn’t come to the net. He’s not trying to bring me in, I know that he returns well, but he’s not attacking my serve on the return of serve.’

“So, he went through his whole game and broke it down. It wasn’t like it was revelations to what we didn’t know about Jannik and what we were trying to change in his game.

“But when you take that conversation and sit down with a young man like Jannik Sinner and say, ‘Hey, listen, I just spoke to Novak and this is what he thinks’, that leaves a big impression on a young player. So for Jannik, it’s: ‘Right, give it to me. Let’s start doing these changes’.”

Djokovic returned to the topic last week at Fanatics Fest in New York, where he reflected on what he had told Sinner’s coach at Wimbledon. “I gave him all the spill of everything I noticed on the court: his weaknesses, his strengths, things he has to work on, and then, the next three years, he beats me at Wimbledon every freaking year! So, maybe I made a mistake, I don’t know (smiling),” said the 24-time Grand Slam champion.

Marta Kostyuk and Elina Svitolina turned May’s clay swing into a study in contrasting elation and quiet resolve. Kostyuk celebrated her first WTA 1000 in Madrid with an audacious backflip. Two weeks later Svitolina won her third Italian Open, closing out Coco Gauff in the final, flinging her racquet, raising her arms and smiling in disbelief eight years after her last Rome title.

Those scenes of release came with reminders of a harder reality. Both players are from Ukraine and have spoken openly about supporting their country. Even as they climbed new career highs, civilians in Ukraine were being hit by renewed missile strikes. A few minutes after her trophy twirl Svitolina finished her speech this way:

I want to thank all the people back in Ukraine that have been supporting me, watching at night, being in the bomb shelters.

“It’s been really heavy for the past couple of weeks for Ukraine, and I want to thank you for all the support, and I feel all the love.”

Before Kostyuk’s backflip came her decision to bypass the handshake with Mirra Andreeva, mirroring the wider practice among Ukrainian players toward most Russian and Belarusian opponents. In her victory comments she thanked “all of my opponents” rather than singling out Andreeva. Asked about the long-running conflict, Kostyuk reinforced her stance: “For me, that doesn’t change,” Kostyuk said.

The pair are part of a deep Ukrainian contingent now counting seven players in the Top 100: Svitolina (No. 7), Kostyuk (15), Dayana Yastremska (45), Yulia Starodubtseva (54), Oleksandra Oliynykova (66), Anhelina Kalinina (89) and Daria Snigur (95). Oliynykova drew headlines earlier this year after accusing several tour-mates of “participating in Russian propaganda,” and she has since climbed from No. 96 to a career-high ranking.

On court the women have also improved. Kostyuk’s season form has been strong, and she has addressed mental hurdles that once undermined consistency. “I was living for many years in that state of everyone expecting big results from me,” Kostyuk said in Madrid. “I’ve tried to change that narrative in my head. And that worked, because, you just, you’re more consistent, you just go out there, you do your job, you don’t have like emotional attachment to it. Whether you win or lose, you just keep working and keep becoming a better person and a player, and that’s it.”

Svitolina changed her physical approach and surged through a tough Rome draw, and reflected on it succinctly: “This one is I think one of the toughest draws that I had in a tournament,” Svitolina said. “I’m very proud of the way that I’ve been handling myself and handling the nerves and being consistent.”