Elena Rybakina battles past Veronika Kudermetova in Ostrava

It's never an easy draw in a stacked event such as the Ostrava Open and Elena Rybakina had to face world number 31 in the first round. It proved not a huge deal early for Rybakina who is slowly establishing herself as one of the premier performers on hard courts. Rybakina set the tone early with her powerful first serve that allowed her to win points on serve with ease.

On return, she was able to keep the ball in play forcing Kudermetova to overhit which resulted in many errors. Games went by quickly as Rybakina found herself winning the opening set with 6-1. A very shaky performance by Kudermetova who was all over the place.

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The 2nd set was much better by the Russian despite her serve seemingly vanishing. Her baseline play was much better and with Rybakian not hitting her serve as consistently, chances presented themselves. She took a 3-1 lead before Rybakina was able to pull it back to 3-2. Kudermetova had break chances in the next game as well but Rybakina held her serve to make it 3-3.

It was a fierce battle as those 6 games last a lot longer than the opening set. However, it would also be the last good thing we saw from Kudermetova. After throwing away a 40-15 lead while serving at 3-3 Kudermetova ended up losing that game and the next two fairly easily. Rybakin moves on with a 6-1 6-3.

José Morgado

@josemorgado

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10.50pm and Rybakina-Kudermetova just starting in Ostrava.

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