By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Saturday, Could 25, 2024
Reigning Roland Garros champion Iga Swiatek is the world’s most dominant clay-court champion.
But with regards to hardest opponents, the world No. 1 is second to 1 for Elena Rybakina.
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The highest-seeded Swiatek carries an imposing 77-10 profession clay-court report into her Roland Garros title protection, together with an outstanding 14-1 clay mark this season capturing back-to-back WTA 1000 championships in Madrid and Rome.
Swiatek’s lone loss on grime got here to Rybakina in Stuttgart.
The 2022 Wimbledon champion Rybakina says world No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka, not four-time main champion Swiatek, is her hardest opponent on the WTA Tour.
“I’d say Aryna [is my toughest opponent],” Rybakina advised the media in Paris as we speak. “We play lots of powerful matches, and he or she’s very aggressive. She has good energy.
“And with Iga I really feel like I’ve extra dominant within the, simply, sport by my energy over Iga. With Aryna, it is more durable.”
Head-to-head information help Rybakina’s stance.
Total, Rybakina has received 4 of six conferences vs. Swiatek.
Two-time Australian Open champion Sabalenka is 6-3 vs. Rybakina, together with edging her rival 1-6, 7-5, 7-6(5) in a pulsating Madrid semifinal earlier this month. Sabalenka fought off Rybakina to win her maiden main title on the 2023 Australian Open.
The 24-year-old Rybakina denied 11 of 13 break factors in a 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 triumph to snap Swiatek’s 10-match Stuttgart profitable streak and attain her fifth closing of the season on the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix final month.
It was Rybakina’s fifth profession victory over a reigning world No. 1 with 4 of these wins coming towards rival Swiatek.
Now, Rybakina has crushed the Roland Garros champion twice in a row on her favourite floor.
Elena #Rybakina ends Iga Swiatek‘s Stuttgart profitable streak to succeed in her first Porsche Tennis Grand Prix Last! Congratulations! 👏🏼 #porschetennis #PTGP24 pic.twitter.com/6YWJZfGd6V
— Porsche Tennis (@PorscheTennis) April 20, 2024
Beating the world’s greatest on her greatest surfaces infuses Rybakina with confidence forward of Roland Garros, the place right here greatest result’s a quarterfinal look in 2021. Rybakina swept Serena Williams within the 2021 French Open spherical of 16.
“Yeah, in fact, it offers me lots of confidence,” mentioned of her profitable report vs. Swiatek. “As I at all times say, I feel I enhance yearly, each event.
“After all these wins towards Iga, it offers you confidence.”
The fourth-ranked Rybakina went on to win Stuttgart changing into the primary lady to succeed in 5 finals within the first 4 months of the season since former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka in 2012.
Picture credit score: Clive Brunskill/Getty
