Elena Rybakina's new coaching partnership with Goran Ivanisevic is off to a "great" start, according to the coach himself. The 2001 Wimbledon champion shared a smiling selfie of #TeamRybakina to his Instagram account this week as the World No.6 prepares for 2025 in the Middle East.

“Great first [two] weeks of preseason in Dubai. Let's keep it up,” he wrote. The photo features a smiling Rybakina and Ivanisevic posing on the practice court with her longtime physical trainer Azuz Simcich and physio Stefan Duell.

After splitting with her coach of five years, Stefano Vukov, prior to the US Open, Rybakina revealed that her fellow Wimbledon winner Ivanisevic would step into the role for 2025 in her pre-tournament press conference at the 2024 WTA Finals Riyadh presented by PIF. In addition to a five-year pairing with 24-time Grand Slam singles champion Novak Djokovic -- which also ended in 2024 -- the Croat also guided countryman Marin Cilic to the 2014 US Open title, and worked with a pair of other former ATP Top 10 players in Tomas Berdych and Milos Raonic.

"I'm really looking forward to this partnership," Rybakina told reporters in November. "I think he's a great champion and he has so much experience and I'm looking forward to start.

"For me, it was important to get better and with the help of the agents we connected and we just decided to start working. So I'm really looking forward."

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Though she was eliminated in the round-robin stage in Riyadh, the World No.6 wrapped up her up-and-down season on a high by beating World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in her final match. Having started the season by winning three titles in her first eight tournaments -- with two other runner-up efforts -- Rybakina's second half was disrupted by injuries and illness. A back problem forced her to withdraw from the US Open ahead of the second round, and kept her out for the entire Asian swing before she returned to play her third year-end championships.