Elena Rybakina sounded more like a mid-ranking journeywoman than a reigning Wimbledon champion.
“I kind of knew what to expect on these big courts, and I just tried to do my best,” said Rybakina after defeating Iga Swiatek, the world No 1, in the fourth round of the Australian Open.
“A few games I was not really successful on my serve, but in the end I think I did a good job.”
If that felt like an understatement, given the magnitude of a 6-4, 6-4 win that leaves a gaping hole in the top half of the women’s draw, it was nonetheless true to form.
Rybakina, a rangy, powerful 23-year-old with a thunderclap serve, does not do hyperbole. She demonstrated as much with her phlegmatic reaction to victory at the All England Club last summer. The equanimity with which she went about her business said much about the self-belief instilled by that breakthrough, yet wider appreciation has been slow in coming, her talent obscured by a deceptively modest ranking of 25th.
As Swiatek would be the first to admit, Rybakina is a good deal better than that. The decision to withhold ranking points from Wimbledon, taken in response to the tournament’s refusal to admit players from Russia and Belarus, has denied the Kazakh her place in the natural order. Bereft of the 2,000 points that would ordinarily have accompanied her win in SW19, she has become an unacknowledged champion, a first-class flyer relegated to coach. At the US Open, where she was consigned to the shadowlands of court 12 and lost in the first round, Rybakina said she did not feel like a grand slam champion. Her Australian Open challenge began on court 13. She has learned not to care.
“I love to compete, and no matter where I play,” said Rybakina. “So for now, I would say that I don’t really look at these things.”
Swiatek, the French and US Open winner and a semi-finalist at Melbourne Park last year, arrived in Australia as the clear title favourite. Yet, in the first meeting between two reigning grand slam champions since Serena Williams faced Angelique Kerber at Wimbledon in 2016, her afternoon started badly and rapidly got worse. Warned for a time violation after taking longer than the allotted one minute to start the match following the warm-up, the Polish top seed lost her opening service game after leading 40-0, then failed to convert two opportunities to break back.
Swiatek recovered with trademark assurance, some silken returning securing a love break two games later, but further woe was to come. On an afternoon when she struggled to find consistency on the first serve, the Pole gifted her opponent a break point in the seventh game with her only double fault of the match. Rybakina gleefully converted with a searing backhand return and, having seized the initiative for a second time, she would not be caught, sealing the set with the fourth of her six aces.
Fast starts were a regular feature of Swiatek’s dominant performances last year, and it was natural to wonder whether the unusual circumstances at the outset of the match had affected her. The Pole conceded that it was strange, but was more perturbed by her inability to sustain her momentum once she had re-established herself in the contest.
“It was weird because actually the umpire was talking to me, and I didn’t understand her twice because I didn’t hear,” said Swiatek. “It doesn’t really matter, but for sure the fact that I had 40-15 in the first two games, and I couldn’t close it was a little bit disturbing, but then I came back, and I was pretty happy with how disciplined I am.
“Still, when the balls got a little bit old and I served with the sun in my eyes, Elena broke me, and that was kind of weird for me because usually when I come back from being down, I’m able to hold that momentum. Today, I lost it.”
As Swiatek acknowledged, that owed much to the quality of an opponent who was steadier and more tactically composed. As last summer’s defeats to Caroline Garcia, Beatriz Haddad Maia and Madison Keys demonstrated, the 21-year-old tends to be at her most vulnerable against exponents of aggressive, first-strike tennis who are willing to take the ball on and rush her. Rybakina certainly meets that description, and she frequently treated the world No 1’s second serve with contempt, battering winners with her clean, heavy returns. Allied with the quality of her own serving – she lost just six points behind her first delivery – it proved an irresistible combination.
Swiatek reeled off the first three games of the second set, briefly raising hopes of a revival. But she would win only more game as Rybakina, impregnable on serve, forced her way back into contention before receding into the distance. Though she cut a frustrated figure towards the end, Swiatek was sanguine afterwards, suggesting she had been overburdened by the weight of expectation as she attempts to live up to her historic achievements last year, when she won eight titles and compiled the longest winning streak since 1990.
“I felt like I took a step back in terms of how I approach these tournaments, and I maybe wanted it a little bit too hard,” said Swiatek. “So I’m going to try to chill out a little bit more.”
Swiatek’s defeat marks the first time in the open era that the top two seeds in both the men’s and women’s draws have been ousted before the quarter-finals at a slam. Rafael Nadal, the top seed in the men’s singles, was beaten by Mackenzie McDonald after suffering a hip injury, while Casper Ruud was upset by Jenson Brooksby. Ons Jabeur, the women’s second seed, suffered a shock loss to Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic.
Swiatek was swiftly followed out of the tournament by Coco Gauff, who was beaten 7-5, 6-3 by Jelena Ostapenko, the Latvian 17th seed and former French Open champion. Ostapenko spanked 30 winners and converted all three of the break points she held, also saving all but one of the eight she faced. Gauff, seeded seventh, struggled to contain her emotions as she faced the media afterwards.
“She hit a lot of winners, which not a lot of people can do on me,” said Gauff. “I think she did a great job.
“I think every loss is somewhat in my control, because I do feel like I’m a good player. But today she just played better.
“There were moments in the match where I was getting frustrated because I normally can problem-solve, but today I felt like I didn’t have many answers to what she was doing.”
It is a feeling with which Swiatek will sympathise.