Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: Elena Rybakina ended world No.2 Iga Swiatek’s hopes in the Australian Open quarter-finals on January 28 with a dominant 7-5 6-1 victory at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne. The fifth seed from Kazakhstan foiled the Pole’s 2026 bid for the career Grand Slam – her sustained power and precision were decisive in the 93-minute showdown. Unbeaten at last year’s WTA Finals, this was her eighth straight top-10 win.
Early breaks were traded as the pair took time to settle into their 12th career meeting, with Swiatek having claimed six of those. Rybakina pulled away in the 1 hour and 35-minute match by winning eight of the last nine games, and leveled her all-time record against Swiatek to 6-6 in the process.
After she was broken in the first game of the match, the 2025 ace leader on the WTA Tour rounded into form on serve in stunning fashion — despite only landing 49% of her first serves in the match. She dug out of a 0-40 deficit at 1-1 in the first set, and only lost 12 points in eight subsequent service games, WTA reports.
Swiatek was the youngest player to make six successive major quarterfinals since Serena Williams at Wimbledon 2003. Rybakina earned her 18th victory in her last 19 matches, dating back to last October, and her eighth consecutive win over a Top 10 player.
“I feel like in the first set for both of us, the first serve was not really working, so we tried to step in on the second serve, put pressure on each other, and I think in the second I just started to play more free, serve better. I’m just really happy with the win,” Rybakina said after the win.
