Majestic late comeback propels Svitolina over Rybakina, wins Bronze Medal

A fantastic late match comeback gave Elina Svitolina her first Olympic Medal as the Ukrainian claims Bronze by defeating Rybakina 1-6 7-6(5) 6-4.

Neither of these players wanted to play this match after a huge disappointment in the semifinals of the Tokyo Olympics. However, a medal was still on the table and both would have rather win that than go empty-handed. Initially, it was Rybakina who came out better playing solid tennis overall whereas Svitolina looked out of it.

The Ukrainian player continued her struggles from the previous rounds overhitting shots left and right. Rather quickly she found herself on the losing side of the scoreboard and soon after that she lost the set 1-6. It was an abysmal performance by Svitolina who had 12 unforced errors in 7 games.

She was not aided by Rybakina who played fairly well to start. Her level cooled off a bit in the 2nd set and it was a much more competitive game. Despite not being on fire from the baseline as on start Rybakina was still able to break Svitolina who was still shaky. However, the Ukrainian battled back to force a tiebreak where she proved better wining it 7-5.

But once again she came out flat in the 3rd finding herself down 0-3 early. At 3-0 for her Rybakina had 40-15 on Svitolina's serve failing to pounce on that opportunity. It came back to bite her big time as the Ukrainian made a fantastic late push to win 5 straight games from 1-4 to 6-4.