The Kazakh Elena Rybakina, 4th in the world and title contender, qualified without trembling for the quarter-finals of Roland-Garros by beating the Ukrainian Elina Svitolina (WTA 19) 6-4 6-3 in 1h09.
“I am very happy with my performance. Elina is a fighter and therefore she is always very difficult to play“, commented Rybakina.
Winner of Wimbledon 2022, she will face the Italian Jasmine Paolini (15) on Wednesday, winner 4-6 6-0 6-1 of the Russian Elina Avanesyan (70), to try to climb for the first time in her career in the last square of the Major on earth. The 24-year-old Kazakh had already reached the quarter-finals in Paris in 2021.
Against Svitolina, she was not without reproach, notably committing 23 unforced errors, but she was more effective: she obtained a total of seven break points and converted five of them (two in the first set and three in the second), when Svitolina converted 2 out of 3 in total.
A first quarter at 28 for Paolini
For his part, Paolini will play a Grand Slam quarter-final for the first time at the age of 28. To achieve this, she was able to reverse a situation that was going badly.
She actually managed to come back to 4-5 in this first set, without being able to prevent her opponent from winning the set. But, subsequently, Paolini was clearly on top. The Italian (1.63 m) had her best Grand Slam result to date in the round of 16 played in January at the Australian Open. At Roland Garros, she had never gone beyond the 2nd round.
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