Rybakina wins her maiden Grand Slam title at 2022 Wimbledon as she comes back from set down against Jabeur
WTA
On Saturday, Elena Rybakina didn't write history just for herself but also for her country as she became the first player from Kazakhstan to win a Grand Slam title at the 2022 Wimbledon Championships.
Rybakina and Jabeur were two of the most dominant players at Wimbledon this year, so who would win the first Grand Slam title had to be decided between them on Saturday at the Centre Court.
The third-seeded Tunisian was entering the match as a slight favorite, but anything could have happened. They met three times before, and Jabeur won two of those matches, even though one was through a retirement.
She also had a much better start to this match when she broke her opponent's serve already in the third game and didn't allow her to have any break points throughout the first set.
Jabeur added one more break when Rybakina was serving to stay in the set, and thanks to that, the Tunisian player was able to win the first set of the final match 6-3 and gain the upper hand.
But the start of the second set wasn't ideal from the Tunisian player, and Rybakina used the chances she got. She converted two out of three breakpoints she had, but she also was successful on all four occasions when she faced a break point.
Rybakina won all the crucial points, which is why she won the second set 6-2, even though it was much closer than the scoreline suggests. That meant the final had to be decided in the third set.
Jabeur started the third set by being broken right away again. That didn't help her chances, but she got very close to recovering. In the sixth game, she had three consecutive break points, but couldn't use any of her chances.
On top of that, Jabeur was broken again, and Rybakina then didn't have any more issues to win the match and lift her first Grand Slam title at the 2022 Wimbledon Championships, beating Jabeur 3-6, 6-2, 6-2.
