A former Wimbledon champion, Rybakina has played solid tennis through a chaotic start to her season, one that has involved multiple coaching switches and the reported one-year ban handed to former coach Stefano Vukov. Rybakina officially began working with former ATP player Davide Sanguinetti following the Australian Open and posted strong resulted through the Middle East Swing, reaching semifinals in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, plus a quarterfinal in Doha.
Like Andreeva, Rybakina also made the fourth round without dropping a set, but quickly fell behind Tuesday evening against her young opposition, who broke in the third game.
Andreeva was looking to consolidate her early lead when the stormy conditions that interrupted play throughout the afternoon returned in earnest, and the players were sent off court waiting for action to resume.
Once back on court, Andreeva hit the ground running, reeling off four straight games to capture the opening set. Though she threw in an ill-timed double fault to hand Rybakina an opening break in the second, the teenager recovered with aplomb as she turned the tables to earn a 5-2 lead.
Andreeva engineered a pair of match points on Rybakina’s serve and quickly converted the second to ease over the finish line after barely an hour on court.
Waiting for her in the last eight is a first meeting with No. 23 seed Elina Svitolina, a former world No. 3 fresh off a big win over No. 4 seed Jessica Pegula earlier on Tuesday.
