For the second year in a row, Elena Rybakina (Kazakhstan) qualified for the final of the WTA 1000 Miami Open tennis tournament, after eliminating the former world’s number one Victoria Azarenka (Belarus). Elena Rybakina, who is 4th in the WTA rankings, won a real marathon match with 2-1 (6:4, 0:6, 7:6).
In the final, she will play versus Danielle Collins (USA), who eliminated Ekaterina Alexandrova (Russia).
The Moscow-born Kazakhstani tennis player Elena Rybakina extended her winning streak at the Hard Rock Stadium to 11 in a row and improved her record to 4-0 against Victoria Azarenka in singles matches and will also be playing in a fourth final of the calendar year.
Elena Rybakina is the highest ranker player after early exits from top three seeds Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka and Cori Coco Gauff. Thus, Elena Rybakina has emerged as the clear favorite to defend her title. She turned the only break point of the first set into an advantage, hitting a total of 21 winners. The second set proved to be a shock turnaround as Victoria Azarenka – a three-time winner of this tournament – made just one unforced error to run out seven games in a row.
In the third set, the Kazakh won a titanic fifth game in which she broke at the fifth attempt thanks to Victoria Azarenka’s backhand at the net. Elena Rybakina served to take a 5:3 lead, with the final seemingly in sight. But the Belarusian battled valiantly on the brink of defeat, pressing Elena Rybakina with some odd shots to break back at 5:5, shocking everyone in the stands. In those moments, Azarenka was playing phenomenally in defense, but the problem was that this rhythm could not be sustained for long.
A tiebreak was reached, but Azarenka, ranked 32nd, made an early break, and then the score became 3:0. A new break and strengthened with his serve made the score 6-1 in the tiebreak for Rybakina, and the rest was just a play-by-play for the record.
