With a win against Victoria Mboko in the quarterfinals of the Toray Pan Pacific Open on Friday, Elena Rybakina isn’t just through to the semifinals at the WTA 500 tournament. She’s also heading to the season-ending WTA Finals Riyadh presented by PIF.
Tokyo: Scores | Draw | Order of play
Rybakina, after winning the AUX · Ningbo Open last week, controlled her own destiny in Tokyo to earn the eighth and final spot, needing to reach at least the semifinals to pass Mirra Andreeva in the Race to the WTA Finals.
With straight-sets wins over Leylah Fernandez on Wednesday and Mboko on Friday, she did just that.
Rybakina was a 6-3, 7-6(4) winner against Mboko to officially seal her berth, reversing the result of their last meeting in the Montreal semifinals. There, Mboko came from a set behind and saved a match point to win in three sets, and in Tokyo, Rybakina saved a set point on serve trailing 6-4 in the second set to take her revenge.
Rybakina rose to the pressure-packed occasion with a clutch performance, as she out-served and out-hit Mboko off the ground. The World No. 7 won the first three games — all of which were tightly contested. After saving a break point in the opening game, she consolidated her first break of Mboko’s serve by escaping a 30-30 third game.
Mboko stayed in front for the majority of the second set with her own strong play — and each player erased one break point in the first 12 games. The Canadian erased Rybakina’s opportunity at 3-3, and Rybakina came up with a big serve when it mattered when she was staring down a potential third set at 5-6, 30-40.
In a high-quality 1 hour and 32 minutes, both players hit more winners than their 11 unforced errors each, but Rybakina’s 23 winners won out against Mboko’s 17.
“It was a very difficult match against Victoria — the last time, it was the same battle,” Rybakina said afterwards. “I’m very happy that today I managed to win in two sets. In the second set, we were going so close, both serving really well, so I’m glad that I could push a little bit more in the tiebreak and win in two sets.
“I’m happy that my serve was working pretty well … on the return, I was trying to move a bit position, but again she was serving so well that it was really difficult. Even when I caught the ball on the racquet, it was still too hard to put it in. It was a very tough, very close match, but I’m happy with the result.”
Looking to extend her winning streak to seven straight matches, and reach a second straight WTA 500 final before heading to Riyadh, Rybakina will next face No. 6 seed Linda Noskova. The Czech advanced to the semifinals after Anna Kalinskaya retired from the first quarterfinal match of the day with a low back injury. Noskova was leading 6-0, 1-0 when Kalinskaya retired.
AloJapan.com