Iga Swiatek suffers a shocking loss to Elena Rybakina
WTA
Iga Swiatek has been one of the main reasons why The Kites got into the 2022 World Tennis League final, but she couldn't help her team in the final tie.
The young Pole defeated all three opponents she faced in the group stage matches without losing a set and earned a lot of valuable points for her team.
In the final, The Kites took on The Hawks and this time, The Hawks have decided to nominate Elena Rybakina instead of Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova for the women's singles match. And that proved to be a crucial decision.
In the final tie, the order of the matches was also different. Previously, every tie started with the mixed doubles match, but that will now be the last match of the tie. Instead, the final tie started with a women's singles match, which is why the two Grand Slam winners took to the court first.
The 2022 Wimbledon champion started with a break, and despite facing three break points in the first three games, she held her serve and was quickly up 3-0.
However, Swiatek then responded and won three consecutive games to make it 3-3 in the first set. Yet, that wasn't enough, as her opponent would go on another three-game streak to win the first set 6-3.
The match was mostly plagued by Swiatek's unforced errors and that didn't change in the second set. Rybakina improved her serving as she hit three aces, and this time, she managed to break her opponent three times while she held her serve every single time.
After an hour and 2 minutes, the Kazakhstani player won the match 6-3, 6-1, to give The Hawks a massive nine-point lead. They lead 13-4 after the first match. In the men's singles match, Felix Auger-Aliassime will have to fight hard against Alexander Zverev to cut the deficit.
