Elena Rybakina was 'leading' against Jasmine Paolini but retired in the middle of the second set to exit from the Cincinnati Masters.
This shouldn't come as a huge surprise to most tennis fans who followed the journey of Rybakina in the past ten or so days. The Kazakhstani player was playing really solid tennis at the WTA 1000 event in Montreal last week, but admitted to picking up injuries along the way.
She explained that she might not even play at the Cincinnati Masters because of that and exhaustion from the crazy schedule she had to endure in Montreal. Well, she opted to play and made a winning start at the event, looking pretty okay.
Today's match against Jasmine Paolini was one that was trending in the right direction once more. She won the opening set 6-4, outplaying the Italian from the baseline by winning the most crucial rallies of the set. Even though she won the set, she didn't look perfect.
Paolini was largely unbothered in her service games, while we saw plenty of battling on Rybakina's side. It culminated in the second set when the Italian took an early lead which put a lot of pressure on Rybakina. We've seen her deal with a lot of pressure recently, as she lashed out against coach Vukov in the previous match as well.
Paolini kept playing well and holding the lead when Rybakina suddenly retired. It was 5-2 in the second set for Paolini, with the Kazakstani player opting to end the match. It's most likely only precautionary as we didn't see anything that suggests a big injury, though. She wasn't serving any worse than usual and looked pretty okay.
The combination of the injury and likely fatigue from playing a lot of tennis contributed to the decision. The tape on her shoulder suggests that the area is the problematic one. She should be good to go for the US Open, hopefully at least.
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