No.4 seed Elena Rybakina returned to the second week of Roland Garros for the second time in her career with a 6-4, 6-2 win over No.25 seed Elise Mertens in 67 minutes.
Rybakina had reached her first Grand Slam quarterfinal in Paris back in 2021, defeating Serena Williams in the 23-time Grand Slam champion’s final match at Roland Garros. However, she fell in the 2022 third round to Madison Keys, and withdrew ahead of her 2023 third round against Sara Sorribes Tormo due to illness.
Prior to this match, Rybakina had won four of her five encounters with Mertens, including a 6-1, 6-0 rout in this year’s Brisbane third round. However, the Belgian had been the victor in their only previous clay contest, at Madrid 2021, and pushed Rybakina hard in the first set.
Drawing errors from Rybakina with superb defense and using her shot variety smartly, Mertens twice led by a break. But the former Wimbledon champion broke back immediately both times, and after levelling at 4-4 controlled the flow of the match with supreme ball-striking. Rybakina’s backhand was in particularly smooth form: that wing contributed a pinpoint lob to hold for 5-4 and a bullet-like return en route to breaking for the set; a superb short angled pass to bring up her first match point, and a down-the-line winner, her 24th of the match, to seal victory.
Rybakina will next face either No.15 seed Elina Svitolina or Ana Bogdan.
Taking care of business ✅ #RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/srjkrxZE6a
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) June 1, 2024
