World No.1 goes down to Wimbledon champ
WORLD No.1 Iga Swiatek was knocked out of the Australian Open in the fourth round on Sunday, losing a showdown of current Grand Slam champions to Elena Rybakina in straight sets.
Rybakina, the 2022 Wimbledon winner from Kazakhstan, beat Swiatek, the French and US Open champion, 6-4, 6-4 in 1hr 29min on Rod Laver Arena to advance to the quarter-finals.
“It was a really tough match and I really respect Iga,” said Rybakina, the 22nd seed.
“She’s a young player and think she played really well,” she added of the 21-year-old from Poland. “It’s a big win and I’m just happy to get to another round.” Rybakina will
face either seventh Coco Gauff or Jelena Ostapenko in the quarter-finals.
Swiatek led 40-0 on her opening service game and 15-40 on Rybakina’s delivery in the next.
But it was the 6ft (1.84m) tall Russian-born player who showed her resilience and power to win both for an early 2-0 lead.
The Pole composed herself to hold in the next and then went on the attack, creating three break points and converting the first when Rybakina went long to level the set at 2-2.
At 3-3, 30-30, Swiatek’s first double fault gave Rybakina another chance which she seized with a sizzling backhand crosscourt return.
The Wimbledon champion comfortably served out, powering down her fourth ace on her first set point to move ahead after 42 minutes. The 23-year-old Rybakina had been on court for more than two hours and taken to a third set 10-point tie-break as she knocked out last year’s finalist Danielle Collins in the third round.
By contrast, Swiatek dropped just one game and did not face a break point during her last-round romp past Spanish qualifier Cristina Bucsa.
Swiatek stepped up at start of the second set, attacking off her forehand and broke immediately for 2-0 to chants of “Iga, Iga” from a small, but noisy, contingent of Polish fans clad in red and white.
However, the cries were short-lived.