Defending Wimbledon Champion Rybakina Enters 2023 Championships With Win

| by Evita Mueller

Last year's WTA Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina avoided a shaky start to the event with a strong comeback win against Shelby Rogers.

Rybakina didn't have the best of preparations for Wimbledon dealing with lingering effects from an illness. She caught that illness in Paris during Roland Garros and it proved quite tricky to overcome taking Ryabkina about a week to be able to leave her hotel room.

She pulled out of Roland Garros because of it after experiencing breathing issues during morning practice in Paris. Leading up to Wimbledon Rybakina admitted to feeling ready. She didn't look that great initially as Rogers was able to take an early break and hold it to win the opening set.

Both played a solid set of tennis but Rogers served better and that allowed her to control the rallies better. Rybakina was spectacular behind her own serve dropping only one point behind the first serve. The issue was that she hit it only 52 % of the time.

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That changed in the second and third sets and it completely turned around the situation on the court. Rybakina served north of 70 % in both the second and third sets losing a combined two points behind her first serve in those two sets.

She dominated play from the baseline thanks to that posting 20 winners and only 7 unforced errors in the final two sets combined. It was a stellar comeback win 4-6 6-1 6-2, as Rybakina really looked like the best grass player on the WTA Tour.

She obviously needs to finetune some things moving forward but if she truly plays her best tennis and serves well on top of that then the rest of the field is in rather big trouble. The next match will see her play either Cornet or Hibino.

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