Elena Rybakina has ended Iga Swiatek’s hopes of becoming the eighth woman in the Open Era to achieve a career Grand Slam after storming past the Pole in straight sets.
The Kazakh fifth seed powered her way to a 7-5, 6-1 win on Rod Laver Arena in just over 90 minutes with the help of 25 winners, which was 15 more than her opponent. After being tested early on in the match, where she was down a break, Rybakina raced to the finish line by winning eight out of the last nine games played. She has now won eight consecutive matches against top 10 players on the Tour.
Rybakina is the first player to beat Swiatek multiple times at the same Grand Slam event after also getting the better of her in 2023. It is the fourth time she has reached the semi-final stage of a major event in her career.
“I’m really happy with the win, and happy that it was in straight sets,” Rybakina said afterwards. “I was struggling a bit in the first set with the serve, but overall, I’m happy that I managed to win in two.”
Explaining her recent success against the top players, Rybakina believes being aggressive is key. At the end of last year, she won the WTA Finals without losing a match at the round-robin event. Then at the start of this season, she reached the quarter-finals in Brisbane before losing to Karolina Muchova. Overall, she has won 12 out of her last 13 Tour-level matches played.
“I think last season, in the last couple of tournaments I played, I gained some confidence throughout tough matches. This is something I tried to carry to this year,” she explains.
“I still have a lot of things to improve on but the most important thing is that I’m trying to stay aggressive whenever I get the chance to step in, maybe risk a little bit.”
Pegula awaits
In the next round, Rybakina will take on Jessica Pegula. The sixth seed prevailed 6-2, 7-6(1), in her all-American clash with Amanda Anisimova. Pegula was down 3-5 in the second set but managed to battle back to level before edging out her rival in the tiebreaker. It is the first time the 31-year-old has reached the last four of a major event outside of the US Open.
In their head-to-head, Rybakina is tied at 3-3 with Pegula but won both of their meetings that took place in 2025.
“She’s a very experienced opponent and she moves well, and also her ball stays quite low,” Rybakina commented.
“So that makes it a bit difficult sometimes to play her, but I will try to adjust.”
Pegula, who is playing in her 28th Grand Slam main draw, has recorded 12 wins over top-five players during her career. Now hoping to record her 13th win on Thursday at Melbourne Park, she is drawing motivation from their three-set encounter two months ago at the WTA Finals, which she lost.
“I was playing really well. She was playing at an unbelievable level in Riyadh and I thought I played a great match. I was really upset afterwards because I felt like I should have won,” Pegula recounted.
“It was really, really close. But she’s just tough to play. She has a massive serve and is cool as a cucumber. You get nothing out of her.
“She’s been playing some great tennis since the end of last year.
“But I’m going to do my best to hopefully crack the code.”
The winner of the upcoming match will play either Aryna Sabalenka or Elina Svitolina in the final.
