They say the rankings don’t lie. The body of work compiled by Elena Rybakina, the Wimbledon champion and notional world No 7, is beginning to suggest otherwise.
Earlier this month in Indian Wells, where Rybakina won her first WTA 1000 title, she achieved the rare distinction of beating the top two in consecutive rounds, dismissing Iga Swiatek in the semi-finals before avenging her defeat to Aryna Sabalenka in January’s Australian Open final. On Thursday night, the Kazakh completed a clean sweep of victories over the top three, defeating Jessica Pegula 7-6 (7-3), 6-4 to reach the final of the Miami Open for the first time.
Rybakina, who has now won 13 straight matches, stands on the brink of becoming only the fifth woman to complete the “sunshine double” of Indian Wells and Miami, a feat that would put her in illustrious company. Since Indian Wells became part of the women’s tour in 1989, only Steffi Graf, Kim Clijsters, Victoria Azarenka and Iga Swiatek have won both titles in the same year. All are former No 1s and multiple grand slam champions.
If she is to join them, Rybakina will first need to find a way past another future Hall of Famer in Petra Kvitova, who ended Sorana Cirstea’s brilliant sunshine stretch with a 7-5, 6-4 victory on Friday. Kvitova, who recovered from 5-2 down in the opening set, denying the Romanian two set points with a pair of big forehands, was a straight-sets winner over Rybakina when the pair last met, three months ago in Adelaide. Rybakina, who won their only other meeting, in Ostrava last year, knows it won’t be easy.
“I played against Petra in the beginning of the year and she played really well, but it was much faster courts there,” said Rybakina.
“I think it’s going to be different [when] I play against her again, but for sure it’s a lot physically, because here the courts are quite slow, especially after rain. When it’s that humid, it’s not easy.”
Having racked up 11 wins in 20 days, the auspices are nonetheless encouraging for Rybakina. She has dealt well with the fatigue that afflicted her following the quick turnaround from Indian Wells, and will face Kvitova well rested after completing her rain-interrupted semi-final a day earlier than the 32-year-old Czech, who has been playing catch-up ever since her midweek meeting with Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova was rained off.
Rybakina has rarely been at her best tennis in Miami, but she has shown admirable tenacity and resourcefulness. She came through a pair of tough three-setters in the early rounds, battling past Anna Kalinskaya before saving a match point against Paula Badosa, and while her trademark consistency on serve has proved elusive at times, her ace count has been in double figures in every round. The last player to hit 10 or more aces across five straight matches at the same event was Serena Williams at Wimbledon in 2016. Even more impressive, though, has been Rybakina’s ablity to come up with those big serves at the moment of greatest need.
“In these important moments like 30-30, 30-40 or something like this, I was serving [an] ace,” said Rybakina after her quarter-final win over Italy’s Martina Trevisan. “So I think it’s just important to find these moments and to push, and for now [I’m] doing well even being not super fresh.”
Timely aggression was certainly a key theme against Pegula, who broke three times in the opening set and twice served for it. On each occasion, Rybakina stuck to her guns, commanding the rallies with her forehand and making her way into the net whenever the opportunity arose. It was a similar story in the second set, where the Kazakh trailed 4-2 before reeling off four straight games.
“I started [to become] a bit more aggressive, because I knew that if it’s going to go to the third set, it’s going to be much more difficult,” said Rybakina. “So I maybe risked a bit more, even in the end of the second set.”
It is a philosophy Kvitova shares. The Czech looked to be in a deep hole after hooking a backhand wide in the sixth game to go a break down against Cirstea. High on confidence after the brilliant win over Sabalenka that propelled her to her first WTA 1000 semi-final for a decade, Cirstea consolidated the advantage with a stunning forehand winner and an ace, and in Kvitova’s next service game she stood within two points of the set at 0-30.
But the two-time Wimbledon champion, continuing a period of resurgence that began when she reached the final in Cincinnati last August, came out swinging, forcing her way back into the game with a flurry of big forehands before sealing it with an ace. More big hitting denied Cirstea two set points as she served for the set at 40-15, and suddenly the contest turned on its head, an early break in the second set handing Kvitova an advantage she would not relinquish.
“I have to say she played quite well,” said Cirstea. “Love thirty, 5-2, she served really good there. It was new balls, it was very quick. Every time we had new balls, she was swinging more. It was very hard to control.”
Now Kvitova must face a kindred spirit, a player happy to fight fire with fire.
Should Rybakina prevail, she will rise to a career-high ranking of sixth. More significantly, she will also move to the top of the WTA race rankings, perhaps offering a truer reflection of where she currently stands in the global pecking order.