Iga Swiatek lost her unbeaten streak at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart as Elena Rybakina proved to be too strong to overcome.
The Polish player has never lost at the WTA 500 tournament in Stuttgart before, as she collected two winners' trophies and two Porsche cars. However, during this year's tournament, she joked that there was always room for one more.
Now she knows that she won't need to create that space for another car, as she won't get a chance to play for it, because one of her main rivals, Rybakina, had a much better day when they met in the semi-finals in Stuttgart.
The Polish player started the match much better, breaking her opponent's serve in the first game of the match and at 2-0 and 40-15, she had two more chances to break again and lead 3-0.
However, the world no. 1 couldn't use those two chances, as Rybakina started a seven-point streak, after which the scoreboard once again showed an equal score, this time 2-2.
The Kazakhstani player didn't stop there. She saved two more break points and added another break, and at 5-2, she was looking to win the set with four set points on her opponent's serve.
Still, the top seed held, and she even had a break back point on Rybakina's serve, but the fourth seed used her serve to her advantage and won the first set 6-3.
Both players were visibly nervous in this match, and it showed. Rybakina couldn't use her chances, but neither could Swiatek, but that was until the tenth game of the second set.
The Polish player fought her way to a break point, which was also a set point, and she needed only one to use it and win the second set 6-4 to force the decider in Stuttgart.
Swiatek certainly wanted to keep her unbeaten streak, but Rybakina was just too strong, served too well, and created just too many break points not to convert some.
In the third set, she had 11 chances and used two, which would have been enough to take the set at least into the tie-break even if Swiatek used both of her chances.
However, the Polish player didn't, and Rybakina could celebrate winning the match 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, and reaching the 2024 Porsche Tennis Grand Prix final.
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