Rybakina's resilience shines in exhilarating victory over Ostapenko

Elena Rybakina survived a hard-fought encounter against Jelena Ostapenko and advanced to the third round.

The 2022 Wimbledon champion was coming off a strong week at the Canadian Open, reaching the semifinals with victories over Jennifer Brady, Sloane Stephens, and Daria Kasatkina, but she was defeated by Liudmila Samsonova.

Rybakina received a bye in the first round and advanced directly to face Jelena Ostapenko. The world No. 20 was in the same quarter of the draw as the Kazakh player and they could have met in Montreal, but Ostapenko lost in the third-set tiebreak to Jennifer Brady.

This week, Ostapenko made a comeback to defeat the Czech Karolina Pliskova in her debut and set up a clash with Rybakina.

Both players struggled with their serves in a lengthy 58-minute set. Each athlete lost their serve three times during the set, and it went to a tiebreak, where the former French Open champion was more consistent. Rybakina had three set points in her favor, but Ostapenko scored five consecutive points to take the lead.

In the second set, they started evenly until 2-2, but after a break by Rybakina, she won four consecutive games to take the second set 6-2.

The World No. 4 took the lead in the third set with a break in the opening game, which she held until 4-3 when Ostapenko managed to level the match. A break back from Rybakina allowed her to serve for the victory, and she capitalized on the second match point to advance to the next round.

The Kazakh had a concerning 47% first serve accuracy, although she won 75% of them and 47% with the second serve. On Ostapenko's side, she hit 59% of her first serves and won 61% of them, but had a poor 36% in points won with the second serve.

This victory improves Rybakina's record in WTA 1000 events this year to 23 wins and only 3 losses. In the next round, she will face the qualifier Jasmine Paolini, world No. 43.