Rybakina in the spotlight at last after Wimbledon winner takes out Swiatek

SNUBBED at the start of the tournament by being exiled to the outside courts, Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina may yet end up having the last laugh at the Australian Open.

The low-key winner of last year’s tournament without ranking points at SW19 is into the quarter-finals of another wide open women’s draw and must surely feel she can beat anyone.

The Moscow-born Kazakh, seeded a falsely low No 22, blew the field apart yesterday when she upset the dominant player of the WTA Tour, Iga Swiatek, 6-4, 6-4 to make the last eight.

The Pole’s dismissal made this the first Grand Slam in the Open era when the top two seeds in both singles events have gone out before the last eight. Rybakina (right) was on Rod Laver Arena and it was a far cry from her first round, when she was stuck out on Court 13 to begin her campaign in near anonymity. She will now face Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko, who overpowered Coco Gauff 7-5, 6-3. The departure of the charismatic American teenager further denuded the women’s event of much-needed star quality. Rybakina, 23, has yet to attract much following outside the parish of tennis, but this was a reminder of how she can play. It was Wimbledon champion versus the French and US Open champion, and Rybakina denied she was extra-motivated by court scheduling decisions. ‘It doesn’t bother me because it’s been already six months after Wimbledon, and the year just started,’ she said. ‘I try to improve from every match. I think about the serve. I have one of the fastest serves. I was leader with the aces. It’s my strength and weapon.’ World No 1 Swiatek, 21, has been so dominant she has acquired more than double the number of ranking points of any other player, but admitted she has been inclined to put too much pressure on herself. ‘I need to work on my mindset and fight a bit more as I did last season,’ she said. ‘I took a step back in terms of how I approach these tournaments. Maybe I wanted it a little bit too hard. So I’m going to try to chill out a bit more.’ Defeat for Gauff, 18, means another wait for a Grand Slam breakthrough, and she briefly teared up when talking of the frustration. ‘I still feel like I’ve improved a lot. But when a player like her (Ostapenko) plays really well, it’s like there’s nothing you can do,’ she said. Seb Korda, son of 1998 Australian Open men’s champion Petr, moved into the quarterfinals 25 years later when he overcame Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz in a fifth-set tiebreak. He will now face Russian Karen Khachanov. The so-called curse of Netflix was completed when the last surviving member of the series, Felix Auger-Aliassime, was beaten by Czech Jiri Lehecka, 21, who had previously knocked out Cam Norrie. Lehecka will face Stefanos Tsitsipas next.