Even after losing to Victoria Azarenka, Elena Rybakina advanced to the Miami final.
Elena Rybakina, the fourth seed, defeated Belarusian Victoria Azarenka 6-4, 0-6, 7-6 (2) on Thursday to earn a trip back to the Miami Open final. Rybakina survived a disastrous second-set loss.
In two hours and thirty-three minutes, Rybakina, the top seed still in the women’s draw, earned roughly eighty-two percent of her first-serve points and converted just two of her eleven break-point opportunities.
After making it to her fourth final of the year, Rybakina, a Kazakh born in Moscow, remarked during her on-court interview, “It was really a tough battle.”
“I didn’t serve very well, and Vika was hitting the serve really well from the second set onwards. Even though it was challenging, I knew I had to fight to the very end, and I really did.
Before breaking Azarenka’s serve to take a 4-3 lead in the first set, Rybakina wasted her first five break-point opportunities. She then relied on her incredible strength to win the 51-minute set with a hold to love.
Jannik Sinner breezes through the Miami semifinals while Collins and Azarenka advance
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But Azarenka was not about to go down without a fight. In the second set, she produced a faultless performance, holding Rybakina to just five points and breaking her serve three times to send the match into a decider.
Following a change of clothes, Rybakina started the third set off considerably better. In the fifth game, she broke at her fifth try to take a 3-2 lead after Azarenka smashed a backhand into the net.
But when Azarenka earned a break to get to 5-5 when she followed down a drop shot before her opponent blasted a backhand volley into the net, Rybakina gave up on her first opportunity to serve out the match.
Serving to stay in the match, Rybakina managed to hold on to love to force a tiebreak, which she won the first three points of before sealing the victory.
Rybakina, who won titles in Brisbane, Abu Dhabi, and Doha this year, will next play either Russian 14th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova or American Danielle Collins.
In the meantime, Alexander Zverev, the fourth seed from Germany, advanced to the men’s semifinals after defeating Fabian Marozsan of Hungary 6-3, 7-5, in challenging circumstances.
In his assault on Marozsan’s serve, Zverev won 80% of his first serve points, batted aside the two break points he faced, and converted three of his seven break-point opportunities to advance to the Miami last four, where he has not yet lost a set.
Zverev had his hands full with Marozsan, who is making his Miami debut and shocks top-10 players Holger Rune and Alex de Minaur en route to the quarterfinals, even though he didn’t drop a set in windy circumstances.
In his on-court interview, Zverev predicted that if he keeps playing the way he is, he will move up the rankings soon and rank among the top 10 players.
“I believe that when they are in charge, all elite players believe they can control the game and slightly sway it to their advantage. That isn’t feasible, though, against him. He is an amazing player and has a fantastic top-10 record as a result.
Zverev’s victory, which he completed with a break after hitting a fantastic backhand down the line, saw him make his first trip back to the Miami Open semifinals since finishing in second place in 2018.
