Elena Rybakina has been playing at a really high level this year, and she continued her winning streak at the 2024 Qatar Open by beating Leylah Fernandez.
Outside of the Australian Open misstep, Rybaina has been utterly spectacular this year. The Kazakhstani player has two WTA trophies to her name, the second one coming last week in Abu Dhabi.
She was on a six-match winning streak before this match, and she continued that streak. Fernandez had a pretty decent shot at winning this match, but she needed to do a few crucial things really well.
She did that at the start of the match and took an early 4-1 lead but couldn't really hold it together. Once Rybakina found her tennis, she started to slowly overwhelm Fernandez, which resulted in a 6-4 finish to the opening set.
Both were really aggressive with their returns on the second serve, but in the crucial moments, they were just not sharp enough from Fernandez. The second set showed a similar problem for the Canadian.
She was once again right there but not quite good enough to really separate herself from Rybakina. Not serving as well this time opened her up for more problems, and Rybakina could use that to her advantage.
She would grind her way to a few break chances and, midway through the second set, used them to take a 5-2 lead. That would basically be it for Fernandez, who couldn't mount a comeback and would lose the match.
It was a good result for her, but it's pretty clear that Rybakina is on another level right now. The final score was 6-4, 6-2, as she moved closer to yet another trophy. She's got two already, and she's looking as strong as ever. Nobody has looked close to beating her since she touched down in the Middle East.
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