Elena Rybakina continued her winning streak with another win at the 2024 Qatar Open, dismissing rising star Emma Navarro.
It's been a very interesting season for Rybakina, who essentially played only one bad match so far. It happened at the Australian Open against Anna Blinkova, which cut her stay at the event short.
Everything else has been utterly spectacular from the Kazakhstani, as she has a lot of wins to her name. She also won two WTA events, Brisbane and Abu Dhabi, and is now marching confidently at yet another tournament.
Navarro tried her best, but she was ultimately no match for Rybakina, who once again demonstrated her devastating power. The American didn't start the match very well because she fell behind early in the opening set and never quite recovered.
Rybakina would finish the set off 6-1 in only 28 minutes. Navarro was simply overwhelmed by her opponent from the baseline and didn't find any good rhythm.
The second set was quite different, some of which had to do with Rybakina not serving well. She didn't really create too much pressure with her serve, and her play from the baseline suffered as well.
Navarro was much better this time around, especially on her serve, withstanding pressure from Rybakina. The 22-year-old started well in the second set, actually breaking Rybakina to take an early 3-1 lead.
She didn't hold it, though, as the third-seeded player eventually battled back. Neither was able to jump out ahead after that, so the set ended up in a close tie-break.
Rybakina took a 4-1 lead, but Navarro fired back to make it 4-4. Not long after that, it was 1-1 in sets because the American finished the tie-break flawlessly.
Was Rybakina's streak in jeopardy? Not really, because she came out and played a pretty sturdy set to finish off the match in three sets: 6-1, 6-7(6), 6-4.
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