Rybakina Continues Wimbledon Title Charge With Hard-Fought Win Over Cornet

Elena Rybakina marches on at the 2023 Wimbledon as the Kazakhstani player cruised past giant-killer Alize Cornet in two sets.

After solidifying herself as one of the best players on the WTA Tour last year by winning Wimbledon, Rybakina aims to add to her Grand Slam legacy with another trophy. There was some doubt leading up to this event with some health issues but she played a really solid round one match to get her title defence underway and now produced another solid effort.

Proclaimed as the best grass player on the Tour by Andy Roddick, Rybakina certainly lived up to that name in the opening set. Facing a very capable grass player who was a combined 22-12 record on the surface in the previous few years, Rybakina proved really strong.

She took an early lead which is always the preferred way you want to start a match because it gives you confidence moving forward. It did wonders for Rybakina who cruised to a 6-2 finish in the first as there was only one game in the match in which Rybakina didn't have a break point.

She dominated play with her baseline play once again losing only one point behind her serve. The second set was much more competitive as Cornet produced a really solid effort overall though she was greatly helped by Rybakina herself. She was quite sturdy in the opening set with 12 winners and 8 unforced errors but much more erratic in the second set.

Cornet found better solutions overall having break points and actually winning more than one point on the serve of her opponent with the 11th game of the set proving crucial. It was a very long one where Cornet had multiple break points but failed to use them getting injured as well.

She called a medical timeout but opted to play on as we ended up in a tiebreak. Injured and hampered Cornet couldn't really give too much resistance in the tiebreak and Rybakina was able to finish things off.

The final score was 6-2 7-6(2) for the Kazakhstani player who had 4 aces and 35 winners. She also had 40 unforced errors though which is what made the second set so close.