ATP Ignacio Buse Elena Rybakina

They ask Ignacio Buse if he could beat Rybakina and his response quickly goes viral

Fernando Murciego - 17 Sep 2026
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Ignacio Buse sparks controversy by responding to whether he could win a match against Elena Rybakina. Source: Getty

The triumph of Elena Rybakina at the US Open has sparked a curious debate that mixes the ATP and WTA circuits. Honestly, an unnecessary debate. The Kazakh player has just won her third Grand Slam and, just a few days later, her level has served as a starting point for a particular discussion: which male player could defeat her?

The question arose after Ignacio Buse, currently ranked #35 in the ATP ranking, expressed his confidence via a streaming that he could beat the new world number one. A statement that quickly generated conversation and reopened old debates, positioning the discussion around the differences between both circuits and the enormous level required to face one of the best male players in the world.

The comparison is particularly striking because Rybakina has just completed one of the most significant performances of her career. In New York, she surpassed Naomi Osaka, Coco Gauff, and Aryna Sabalenka before lifting the trophy, despite arriving at the tournament with physical doubts after retiring in Cincinnati due to an ankle injury. However, we also know that genetics plays a fundamental role here, aware that any player in the top 500 could easily defeat any professional player from the WTA ranking.

The debate, therefore, comes at a time of greater exposure for the Kazakh player. Buse has raised a sporting provocation that has found responses off the court, although the underlying question is another: how long are we going to keep circling around a question that everyone knows the answer to? Or rather: how long are we going to keep being surprised to hear that a professional female tennis player cannot beat a professional male tennis player?

We are facing a discussion that, beyond the joke and the exchange of statements, brings back a question as old as it is recurrent in tennis: how far does the boundary between both circuits extend?

This is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, Le preguntan a Ignacio Buse si podría ganar a Rybakina y la respuesta no tarda en hacerse viral