World number one Elena Rybakina has withdrawn from the WTA Finals due to a viral illness, ending her bid to defend the title she won last year.\n<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old Kazakh announced her withdrawal on the eve of the tournament, saying her body was not physically ready to compete despite enjoying the most successful season of her career.\n<\/p>\n
As reported by BBC Sport on Sunday, she was quoted as saying, \u201cI am really sad to inform all my fans and supporters that I unfortunately have to withdraw from the WTA Finals this year,\u201d Rybakina said.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had an incredible season but my body is just not physically ready to compete.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to spend some time resting and recovering at home and getting myself ready for the 2027 season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rybakina had been hoping to become the first player since American great Serena Williams in 2014 to win the WTA Finals in consecutive years.\n<\/p>\n
Her withdrawal comes after a remarkable 2026 campaign in which she captured the Australian Open and US Open titles, alongside victories in Stuttgart and Ningbo.<\/p>\n
She also finished runner-up at Indian Wells and Toronto, further underlining her consistency throughout the season.\n<\/p>\n
The Kazakh secured the year-end world number one ranking while competing in Tokyo in October, ending Aryna Sabalenka\u2019s 99-week reign at the top following her victory over the Belarusian in the US Open final six weeks earlier.\n<\/p>\n
Rybakina finished the season with 54 victories from 68 matches, including 17 wins in 19 Grand Slam outings.\n<\/p>\n
Her success was largely driven by an outstanding serving performance, with 438 aces, 140 more than second-placed Sabalenka.\n<\/p>\n
She also recorded a tour-leading 1,775 winners and an unmatched 10 victories against fellow top-10 players. TV\n<\/p>\n
Rybakina has won six of her 15 career titles since October last year, ending a nearly four-year wait to add to her maiden Grand Slam triumph at Wimbledon in 2022.\n<\/p>\n
Her absence will be a major setback to the WTA Finals, as she misses the opportunity to close an outstanding season by defending her championship.<\/p>\n
Source: <\/p>\n
World number one Elena Rybakina has withdrawn from the WTA Finals due to a viral illness, ending her bid to defend the title she won last year. The 27-year-old Kazakh… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}