Simona Halep outlasts Elena Rybakina in tight 3-set battle at US Open

Simona Halep is through to the 4th round of US Open after a tightly contested match against Elena Rybakina 7-6(11) 4-6 6-3.

A great match was played between Simona Halep and Elena Rybakina. Two players who like to hit it hard did just that for the better part of the first set. Rybakina was up once but Simona came back. She was up once more 5-3 before Halep brought it back. Then Halep served for the set at 6-5 only to get broken to send the set into the tiebreak.

In it, Rybakina made error after error falling behind 2-6 before making it 6-6. In the end, Halep won the amazing tiebreak with 13-11. The 2nd set for the majority of it was highlighted by great play by Rybakina. She took an early 3-0 lead but collapsed a bit later to make it 3-3.

She then took a medical timeout with Halep consulting the physio as well which was interesting to observe. Upon resumption of the match, Rybakina was able to take the lead once more hitting some great shots down the stretch. She forced a decider with a 6-4 2nd set win.

In the decider it was Halep was simply played better. Rybakina rushed from error to error as Halep played some amazing defence. Experience played a part as well as Halep limited errors to a minimum not giving a single point away. All of that was enough for her to close it out with a 6-3 final set win.