Elena Rybakina started her grass season at the 2024 Berlin Open with a pretty solid straight-sets win over Veronika Kudermetova.
The former Wimbledon champion last played at Roland Garros, where she was having a good run before losing to Jasmine Paolini, who amazed everybody by making the final out of nowhere.
Rybakina has taken some time off since then but returned to the WTA 500 tournament in Berlin this week, with Kudermetova being her first opponent. The Russian hasn't played that well this year, but she's a good player who can do some damage.
This match was sort of like that, as Kudermetova had a few great moments in this match. Rybakina opened really well, taking an early break and leading 4-1, but the Russian stabilized not long after that.
She could break back to make it 5-4 but then lost her serve once more to drop the opening set, which was quite lucky for Rybakina, as Kudermetova was playing really solid tennis at that moment.
The third seed was better overall in the opening set, winning it 6-4, but towards the end, Kudermetova found some solutions. That was demonstrated well at the start of the second set when Kudermetova took a 2-0 lead and almost made it 3-0.
The Russian was simply a bit sharper in the rallies, but it didn't last too long, as Rybakina was just too good. She broke back at 3-2 to make it 3-3, and obviously, that proved a huge momentum shift.
Even so, Rybakina had to wait to get a chance to break, and it came at 6-5, with the break point being a match point as well. Kudermetova saved the first three but then still lost the game and match, allowing Rybakina to win in two sets.
It wasn't a perfect match for Rybakina, but she did enough to win and keep in two sets, winning the match 6-4, 7-5.
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