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tennis

Kazakhstani Tennis Player Sonja Zhiyenbayeva Surges in Rankings

Most of the international attention on women tennis players from Kazakhstan goes to Elena Rybakina, the second-ranked, Moscow-born player who has won two Grand Slam singles titles. But Sonja Zhiyenbayeva, a Kazakh talent still far from the elite group at the top of the game, has delivered such strong results this month that the WTA included her in a list of “notable ranking movements.” Zhiyenbayeva, a former junior number 15, moved up 288 spots to 450 in the rankings after winning her first W75 tournament as a qualifier in Ourense, Spain, beating Isabella Shinikova of Bulgaria for the title on August 9. The 20-year-old Kazakhstani followed up that victory by winning the W35 title in Vigo, Spain, on August 16, defeating China’s Yufei Ren, who was ranked 332. The Vigo title should push Zhiyenbayeva’s world ranking closer to 400. “Thus, in the space of two weeks in Spain, Zhiyenbayeva captured back-to-back titles — the W75 in Ourense and the W35 in Vigo, continuing her impressive run of form on the professional tour,” the Kazakhstan Tennis Federation said. The numbers in W75 and W35 refer to the ranking points that the champion acquires. Zhiyenbayeva's accumulation of 110 points in the hard court tournaments this month has enabled her to leapfrog over hundreds of other players in the world rankings. She is an economics student at Pepperdine University in California. On her LinkedIn profile, Zhiyenbayeva says her experience as a professional tennis player has helped her develop “discipline, adaptability, and the ability to perform under pressure.” Zhiyenbayeva was born in Almaty and moved to Germany at a young age with her Kazakh mother and German father. She represented Germany as a tennis player but changed her “sport nationality” to join Kazakhstan´s national team in 2024, state-run media in Kazakhstan reported.

World Table Tennis Championships

Astana to Host 2027 World Table Tennis Championships

The ITTF World Table Tennis Championships Finals Astana 2027 will take place in Kazakhstan’s capital from May 22 to May 30, 2027, becoming the first world table tennis championship ever held in Central Asia. The tournament was officially presented at the ADD Table Tennis Center Astana. According to Kazakhstan’s Vice Minister of Tourism and Sports Serik Zharasbayev, the country will host seven international Olympic sports tournaments in 2027, with the World Table Tennis Championships expected to become one of the year’s largest sporting events. Representatives from more than 100 countries are expected to participate. The main venue will be Barys Arena, which has a capacity of approximately 8,000 spectators. Additional matches will be hosted at the Qazaqstan Athletics Sports Complex, which can accommodate around 6,800 people. “Our capital was selected to host the World Championships for several reasons, one of the main ones being the availability of major sports facilities that fully meet international requirements,” Zharasbayev told journalists during a briefing. According to the vice minister, a technical delegation from the International Table Tennis Federation has already inspected the venues and gave the tournament infrastructure high marks. “The entire infrastructure is being evaluated from the airport to the sports facilities. At this point, Kazakhstan, and Astana in particular, possess all the necessary resources to host competitions of this level,” he said. Zharasbayev also noted that table tennis remains one of the fastest-growing sports in Kazakhstan. Organizers expect approximately 1,000 athletes to take part in the championships. The tournament will also serve as one of the key ranking qualification stages for the 2028 Summer Olympic Games. Medals will be awarded in five categories: men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles. Asiya Ilyasova, the tournament’s marketing and commercial director, said organizers are hopeful for a strong performance by Kazakhstan’s national team. “We have a strong national team that has consistently delivered high-level results in recent years. For example, Kirill Gerassimenko and Alan Kurmangaliyev are ranked among the world’s top 30 players. They will represent Kazakhstan at the World Championships, and we have high expectations for them,” Ilyasova said. According to organizers, Astana is expected to welcome large numbers of foreign visitors, including fans and official delegations, particularly from Southeast Asian countries where table tennis enjoys enormous popularity. In the coming months, organizers plan to launch competitions among souvenir manufacturers to create products featuring Kazakh national motifs, as well as contests for fashion designers to develop uniforms for volunteers, staff, and official tournament merchandise. An open competition will also be announced to design the official mascot of the championships. The Times of Central Asia previously reported that Astana will also host the 2026 Future Games, an international tournament combining traditional sports and esports disciplines.

Elena Rybakina

Rybakina Wins on Clay in Stuttgart, in Run-up to Roland Garros

World number two Elena Rybakina defeated Karolina Muchova to win the WTA title in Stuttgart, Germany on Sunday, elevating her to the top spot in the points race to qualify for the season-ending championship in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in November. Rybakina’s 7-5, 6-1 victory over Muchova was the Kazakhstani player’s 13th title - and the first repeat title of her career after winning 12 titles in 12 different tournaments. She won in Stuttgart in 2024. In the Stuttgart quarterfinals this year, Rybakina saved two match points against Leylah Fernandez in a three-hour battle. The title on clay in Stuttgart gives the Russia-born player momentum ahead of the French Open, which begins next month. Rybakina won the Australian Open this year and is also the 2022 Wimbledon champion.

tennis

Kazakhstan’s Bublik Remembers Clay Court Moment with Monfils

Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik shared a memory at the net with Gaël Monfils after defeating him at the Monte-Carlo Masters, in the French veteran’s last appearance at the Roland Garros tune-up. “Do you know what? Exactly 10 years ago, I was a hitting partner here,” Bublik, ranked 11th in the world, told Monfils after beating him 6-4, 6-4 in the round of 32 on Tuesday. As the two men embraced and the crowd cheered, Bublik asked Monfils if he remembered what he had said a decade ago. Monfils responded: “I told you grass is not the main, here is your main! Remember that.” The 39-year-old Frenchman, who has said the 2026 season will be his last in professional tennis, was onto something when he told Bublik to focus on clay court tennis all those years ago. Although the Russia-born player was once open about his distaste for the surface, he reached the French Open quarterfinals and won two clay titles last year during a resurgence that propelled him up the rankings. Bublik, 28, was in command against Monfils, mixing up baseline drives with feathered drop shots that his opponent couldn’t reach. Monfils was once ranked as high as sixth in the world and has won 13 ATP titles. Bublik has won nine titles. The two men are considered among the most entertaining on the tour, for their shotmaking and flamboyance on the court. In Monaco on Tuesday, as they approached the umpire’s chair for a handshake, Monfils said to Bublik: “Good luck, brother.”

tennis

Old Bublik? Classic Bublik? Kazakhstani Tennis Player Loses in California

It wasn’t so much the loss that alarmed some tennis fans, but the racket smash. After stellar results since mid-2025 that propelled him into the top 10, Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik went out in the round of 32 at the Indian Wells tennis tournament to Rinky Hijikata, who is ranked outside the top 100. Bublik faded in the third after two tiebreaks, losing 6-7(3), 7-6(3), 6-3 to the Australian qualifier in the southern California desert on Monday. But a moment that distracted from the shot-making came when Hijikata tied the match at the end of the second set, hitting a smash into the open court. Bublik responded by pulverizing his racket, smashing it into the hard court five times in a reminder of past emotional eruptions that some people in the tennis world saw as undermining his potential. Tennis analyst Nikola Aracic said he thought Bublik had the potential to be in the top five but that recent disappointments, including a fourth-round wipeout by Australian Alex de Minaur at the Australian Open in January, were threatening his chances. “We’re seeing the ‘old Bublik’ unfortunately, and he is back in the trap of jester-maxxing on the court,” Aracic said on his YouTube channel, in reference to Bublik hitting an easy, putaway ball with his racket handle during the match against Hijikata. “NEVER CHANGE,” Tennis TV said on X, accompanying video of the stunt with a laughter emoji. “People on the internet love it and some of the major publications in the tennis world have praised this as ‘classic Bublik,’” Aracic said. “But I’m seeing this as something very negative” that, if continued, could relegate Bublik to a lower ranking as he loses focus. The Athletic, a sports journalism outlet owned by The New York Times, featured Bublik in an article this week that was titled: “How to smash a tennis racket: Style, control, damage, aggression — and danger.” The article says Bublik smashed his racket “with abandon and devastation,” though it notes that destroying rackets has a long history among the tennis elite. Russia-born Bublik, 28, started 2026 by winning the ATP tournament in Hong Kong and becoming a top 10 player for the first time. He won four titles last year after struggling early in 2025, matching his showman instincts with a surge up the rankings. After beating Bublik, Hijikata lost to Cameron Norrie of Britain in the round of 16 on Wednesday.

Kazakhstan tennis

Kazakhstan’s Rybakina Wins Australian Open, Her Second Major

Elena Rybakina became the first player from Kazakhstan to win the Australian Open on Saturday, defeating world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in the final in Melbourne. Rybakina, the 2022 Wimbledon champion, didn’t drop a set on her way to the final, capitalizing on her big serve and aggressive groundstrokes. She was down 0-3 in the third set against Sabalenka, but then won five consecutive games and closed out the match with an ace. She raised her arms in triumph and, after a brief embrace with the Belarusian at the net, jogged to her box to acknowledge her team. “Thank you so much to Kazakhstan,” Rybakina, 26, said in her victory speech, nodding in the direction of a group of fans in the stands. “I felt the support from that corner a lot.” The world No. 5 had lost to Sabalenka in three sets in the Australian Open Final in 2023. But Russia-born Rybakina defeated the world’s top player to win the WTA Finals in November after a year in which she won two WTA 500 titles but did not advance past the fourth round at any of the majors. “I just hope that we’re going to play many more finals together,” Rybakina said in Melbourne. Sabalenka has a head-to-head record of 8-6 over Rybakina.