Settling into her position as one to watch, she made her Grand Slam breakthrough two years later at Wimbledon, defeating Halep in the semifinals and rallying from a set down to beat Ons Jabeur for her first major victory. Despite reaching another major final at the following year’s Australian Open, further success at the Slams has been slow in coming, making just two quarterfinals in her last five attempts.
Still, Rybakina has become the clear favorite to win a second Wimbledon title following the many upsets that have occurred on both halves of the draw, and has been rounding into form after losing just one game in her third round against former world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki.
Taking on Kalinskaya, she dug out of an early-break deficit and navigated a tense ninth game that played out as the Russian-born Kazakh tried serving for the set. Clinching the game on her serve, she took two more breaks in the second when Kalinskaya decided she could no longer play on, sending the No. 4 seed into the last eight in under an hour.
Awaiting her there will be the winner of the fourth-round clash between 2023 semifinalist Elina Svitolina and China’s Wang Xinyu, who knocked out No. 5 seed Jessica Pegula earlier in the tournament.
