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 relating to hardest opponents, the world No. 1 is second to at least one 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 might say Aryna [is my toughest opponent],” Rybakina instructed the media in Paris right now. “We play a whole lot of robust 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, recreation by my energy over Iga. With Aryna, it is more durable.”
Head-to-head information help Rybakina’s stance.
General, 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 last 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 in opposition to rival Swiatek.
Now, Rybakina has overwhelmed the Roland Garros champion twice in a row on her favourite floor.
Elena #Rybakina ends Iga Swiatek‘s Stuttgart profitable streak to achieve her first Porsche Tennis Grand Prix Closing! Congratulations! 👏🏼 #porschetennis #PTGP24 pic.twitter.com/6YWJZfGd6V
— Porsche Tennis (@PorscheTennis) April 20, 2024
Beating the world’s finest on her finest surfaces infuses Rybakina with confidence forward of Roland Garros, the place right here finest result’s a quarterfinal look in 2021. Rybakina swept Serena Williams within the 2021 French Open spherical of 16.
“Yeah, after all, it offers me a whole lot of confidence,” mentioned of her profitable report vs. Swiatek. “As I at all times say, I believe I enhance yearly, each event.
“In fact these wins in opposition to Iga, it offers you confidence.”
The fourth-ranked Rybakina went on to win Stuttgart turning into the primary girl to achieve 5 finals within the first 4 months of the season since former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka in 2012.
Photograph credit score: Clive Brunskill/Getty
