Elena Rybakina is one win away from her third title of the season. The 24-year-old held off a late fightback from Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova to reach the final in Doha, where she will face Iga Swiatek on Saturday after Karolina Pliskova pulled out of the tournament with a lower back injury.
Rybakina, who trounced Aryna Sabalenka to win the Brisbane International last month and defeated Daria Kasatkina to take the spoils in Abu Dhabi last week, is fast emerging as the player to beat in 2024. Her 6-2, 6-4 victory over Pavlyuchenkova was her eighth in a row since the Australian Open, where a shock second-round loss to Anna Blinkova looks increasingly like an outlier. Swiatek, who was beaten by the Kazakhstani world No 4 at Melbourne Park and Indian Wells last year, and also withdrew with injury in the deciding set of their quarter-final meeting in Rome, can expect to have her work cut out in the final.
Rybakina, however, did not have things all her own way against the resurgent Pavlyuchenkova. Swiatek and her team will have noted with interest how hard the third seed had to work to hold serve on a slow court that nullifies the pace of her delivery. The Pole is likely to be less forgiving than Pavlyuchekova, who converted just one of the nine break points she fashioned, tempting Rybakina into a low-percentage forehand down the line as she served for the match at 5-2 in the second set.
That miss heralded an auspicious few minutes for Pavlyuchenkova, who held convincingly before conjuring a brilliant topspin lob to earn a point for 5-5. Rybakina clung on, ripping a forehand down the line to force an error and going on to seal the win with her third ace of the afternoon, but a ratio of 39 unforced errors to 27 winners made her straight-sets victory a good deal more complicated than the scoreline would suggest.
“[I’m] really happy that it was two sets,” said Rybakina. “Maybe the score in the first set doesn’t show [it], but it was a very physical match and we were both fighting. Every point was tough, and in the first set it went my way. I served really well and [made] some good returns.
“In the second, it was a little bit shaky in the end, but I’m very happy that I closed it out.
“I knew it was going to be tough. Nastia, she plays really well now, she returns really well, so you need to really work on the service games. Here it’s not that fast, so I cannot really get many easy points. So for every point you need to work, and it was really tough physically.”
Defeat notwithstanding, it has been a memorable week for Pavlyuchenkova. Barely a year ago, she was languishing at 846 in the rankings following a protracted layoff with a knee injury. It has taken time for the former world No 11 to re-establish herself, but after reaching the fourth WTA 1000 semi-final of her career – and claiming notable wins over Daria Kasatkina, Marketa Vondrousova and Danielle Collins along the way – the 32-year-old will rise eight places to No 24 next week.
Hot on her heels will be Pliskova, who is projected to rise 23 spots to No 36. The Czech’s withdrawal follows a remarkable run of nine victories in 10 days that began in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, where the 31-year-old won her first title in four years on Sunday. A 10-hour flight to Doha followed, leaving Pliskova just four hours to sleep before taking to the court for her opening-round match against Anna Kalinskaya.
Extended to a third set by the Russian, Pliskova also went the distance against Anastasia Potapova and Linda Noskova before winning two tiebreaks to see off Naomi Osaka in the quarter-finals. It has been a marathon effort by the former US Open and Wimbledon finalist, and unsurprisingly it finally caught up with her.
“Unfortunately my body couldn’t compete today in [the] semi-finals,” Pliskova wrote on social media. “The schedule of [the] last two weeks was too difficult to recover from all these tough matches. I have an MRI scan tomorrow. Hope to be back on court soon.”
Pliskova’s withdrawal means Swiatek becomes the first player to reach the title round at the same hard-court event for three years in succession since Serena Williams made the last of three straight Australian Open finals in 2017. Rybakina is well aware that three victories in four previous meetings with Swiatek will count for little at a tournament the Pole has made her own.
“For sure it gives some confidence, but every match is a new match,” said Rybakina. “She plays really well, she’s fresher now for sure, and she likes the conditions here, she was winning a lot. I’m already happy [to be in the final] and I will try to enjoy tomorrow and do as much as I can.”