Despite all his efforts to prevent the Russians from playing at Wimbledon, this Saturday’s final at the All England Club will feature a Moscow-born tennis player. Elena Rybakina, a Kazakh national, but of Russian origin, surprised Romanian Simona Halep on Thursday (6-3 and 6-3) and will play her first Wimbledon final.
The Kazakh, who had never made it past the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam, gave Halep a shake, who came here on a 12-match unbeaten streak at Wimbledon.
The Romanian had not known the defeat at the All England Club since the 2018 edition, since she won the 2019 edition and did not appear due to injury last year (the 2020 edition was suspended due to the pandemic).
Halep was the favorite in the duel against Rybakina, with the advantage of having beaten her in her last two matches, at the US Open 2021 and Dubai 2020, but the Kazakh, thanks to how she took advantage of the Romanian’s second serves, took the fast track meeting.
Rybakina won 20 points on Halep’s second serve and only conceded one break point on hers. In addition, Halep committed nine double faults that weighed her down in a game that went too quickly.
In just an hour and a quarter, Halep, who had not lost a set throughout the tournament and left Spain’s Paula Badosa and American Amanada Anisimova behind, broke her winning streak at the All England Club.
Rybakina has only won two titles in her career, but this Saturday she will fight for the most important of all. She will face Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur in the Wimbledon final, who defeated Germany’s Tatjana Maria in three sets. This will be the fourth meeting between Rybakina and Jabeur, with the Tunisian leading 2-1 in the head-to-head. Jabeur beat him last year in Chicago and Dubai, both on cement, and Rybakina beat him, also on cement, in Wuhan in 2019.
