Elena Rybakina delivered a serving masterclass on Wednesday to dismantle world No. 2 Iga Swiatek 7-5, 6-1, ending the Pole's quest to become the 11th woman in history to complete a career Grand Slam. The No. 5 seed required just over an hour and a half to secure her place in the semi-finals, where she will face American Jessica Pegula.
The match turned on the massive disparity in serving power. Despite landing only 41% of her first serves in the opening set, Rybakina won a staggering 93% of those points. In contrast, Swiatek struggled to find free points, winning just 64% of her first-serve points as she faced constant pressure from the Kazakh's returns.
In the second set I just started to play more freely and served better. For now the serve is really helping, so hopefully I can continue like this
Elena Rybakina
For Swiatek, the defeat marks a sobering moment in her evolution. The four-time French Open champion admitted that her serve remains a "work in progress" and announced she may take the extreme measure of skipping upcoming WTA 1000 events to fix technical flaws in her game.
There’s some stuff on the serve that I want to change... matches come and you don’t have that much time to think about this. You don’t want to think about these kinds of details when you play
Iga Swiatek
The victory sets up a high-stakes Thursday in Melbourne. Rybakina will take on Jessica Pegula, who defeated Amanda Anisimova in straight sets, while the top half of the draw sees world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka face off against Elina Svitolina.
Elena Rybakina (5) vs. Jessica Pegula (6)
Aryna Sabalenka (1) vs. Elina Svitolina (12)
