Russian-born Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina takes victory in her stride

Elena Rybakina wins 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 and delivers the most subdued reaction in memory to winning an illustrious sporting event.

The Duchess of Cambridge presents the trophy of Russian-born Elena Rybakina

It’s two o’clock on a sun-kissed Saturday afternoon in London. The toss for the Ladies Singles final is performed by Gabia Sakaviciute. The All England Club has chosen the 13-year-old girl to go heads or tails “for overcoming difficult personal circumstances and in recognition of the way in which she selflessly cared for her family and neighbours during the pandemic.”. She flips the coin and Ons Jabeur calls it correctly.

The Ladies Singles. It gets the old-fashioned terminology and capitalised lettering in all of London’s glorious publications, from the restless, attention-seeking The Sun to the cool, calm and collected The Times, and it seems fitting because the sense of occasion right now is palpable.

Sound the trumpets, blow the horns, Wimbledon does finals weekend beautifully and the formal nomenclature is apt. It’s enough to make an Australian beach bum put away his thongs and find some enclosed footwear for a couple of days.

Not a blade of grass is out of place. There’s not a speck of dust to be seen. When a steward spots a piece of litter, a disorderly chocolate wrapper near the South West Hall entrance to Centre Court, he laughs and grumbles about the place having gone to rack and ruin. The politeness is best exemplified when one English Rose says to another, “Sophie, would you be ever so bothered if we swapped seats?”

The Ladies Singles final. It’s amazing to think Ash Barty was in this match a year ago. Amazing to think she won it and hoisted the Venus Rosewater Dish. Amazing to think she’s no longer even a player. Elena Rybakina wins 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 and delivers the most subdued reaction in memory to winning an illustrious sporting event. The 23-year-old Kazakhstani (cough, cough) wanders to the net like there’s nothing more noteworthy coming up than a change of ends.

The notoriously but endearingly shy Ladies Singles champion says in the on-court presentation: “I’m speechless,” she says. “The crowd were unbelievable and I want to congratulate Ons, you are an inspiration. It was a joy to play against you. It’s an honour to play here in this unbelievable atmosphere.

“I didn’t expect to be in the second week. To be a winner is just amazing. I wouldn’t be here without my team of course, so I want to say a big thanks to them. And most importantly, my parents.”

Rybakina is portrayed as some sort of Russian spy in certain quarters. She’s Moscow-born and lives there now, but plays for Kazakhstan because it aided her financially when she was starting on tour in 2018. No one has mentioned it until now. Awkwardness stems from Russian players being banned from the championships because of the invasion of Ukraine.

“I’m always very calm,” Rybakina says of her understated victory walk. “I don’t know what should happen. When I was giving the speech I was thinking, ‘I’m going to cry right now,’ but somehow I hold it. Maybe later, when I’m going to be alone in the room, I’m going to cry non-stop. I don’t know (smiling). I really didn’t know what to do because it was shocking. I don’t know, maybe because I believe that I can do it deep inside. But at the same time it’s like, ‘Too many emotions. I was just trying to keep myself calm. Maybe one day you will see a huge reaction from me but unfortunately not today. Maybe one day, in a few days, I will sit down and realise what I did. But for now I’m super-proud of myself.”

The notorious Russian website Championat has written: “This is our Lena — a native of Moscow in the Wimbledon final! The Russian tennis player will be in the final of the main grass tournament. No matter how the British authorities resisted this. Ironically, on Saturday, July 9, a Russian girl will still appear on Wimbledon’s Centre Court.”

Rybakina says: “For me, as I said in the previous interviews, I’m playing for Kazakhstan for a very, very long time. I represent in the biggest tournaments, Olympics, which was a dream come true. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I mean, it’s always some news, but I cannot do anything about this. From my side I can only say that I’m representing Kazakhstan and I didn’t choose where I was born. People believed in me. Kazakhstan supported me so much. Even today I heard so much support. I saw the flags. So I don’t know how to answer these questions.”

Photographs of the Duchess of Cambridge presenting the trophy to a Moscow native are sure to get a decent run in Russia’s dailies. All a bit unfair on her. She’s done nothing wrong ahead of a match in which she’s done everything right for her last two dynamite sets.

She’s served powerfully and unloaded fearless groundstroke winners as Jabeur, the so-called and self-described Minister of Happiness in Tunisia, has moped around like the match has been a chore. When Rybakina becomes the first major champion from Kazakhastan (cough, cough), the devastated Jabeur has failed to become the first Tunisian and Araba to achieve the same honour.

“I think she does react little bit. Just you have to see it sometimes,” Jabeur says of Rybakina taking the win in her stride. “I’m usually someone that doesn’t focus on my opponent. It could be disturbing if the other person is talking or shouting all the time. But it’s nice to play Elena, to be honest with you. Even when you lose against her, she doesn’t do any big celebration or anything.”

Jabeur says with a laugh: “I need to teach her how to celebrate really good. But she is the player that she is. Maybe that suits her. It’s very comforting for her. It’s working. Maybe she needs to do that.”

Jabeur’s been devastated on Centre Court — ever so bothered, Sophie — but more chipper after a shower. “That’s tennis,” she says. “There’s only one winner. It’s a positive two weeks for me. I’m just going to keep my head high. I didn’t play my best tennis, let’s say, in the second and third sets and she started to be more aggressive. She put a lot of pressure on me and I didn’t find a solution today.”

Jabeur had a photo of the Venus Rosewater Dish as the home screen on her phone in the hope and/or expectation of winning it.

“I told myself, ‘Don’t lose the second set’,” she says. “That’s the thing I told myself because I’ve been winning the first set and for some reason dropping the second. It’s frustrating to play someone that serves really big and doesn’t give you the chance to break.

“I just kept telling myself, ‘This is not over, I trust you. I even said, ‘I love you’ to myself during the match. It wasn’t meant to be. I don’t regret anything. I gave it my all. A final, I lose so many at the beginning, then step back and win one more.”

She adds: “I don’t disbelieve in myself. I know that I’m going to come back and win a grand slam. For sure. This is tennis, and it’s part of it. I have to learn from it, definitely. But I’m very, very positive about it. This is just the beginning of so many things. I’m very positive about it.

“I wanted really bad that title but maybe because I wanted it too much, I didn’t have it. But it’s just the beginning of great things for me. I’m always happy. Like Bob Marley said, ‘Don’t worry, be happy’.”

With apologies to Bobby McFerrin, of course.