Top seed Holger Rune battled his way through to the men’s final, but Elena Rybakina served up a masterclass as she advanced to the Brisbane International women’s final on Saturday.
While top seed Holger Rune fought her way through to the men’s final, world number four Elena Rybakina performed a serving masterclass on Saturday as she advanced to the Brisbane International women’s final. The Kazakh player Rybakina, who was born in Russia, defeated Linda Noskova, a teenage girl from the Czech Republic, 6-3, 6-2, breaking her opponent twice in the opening set. Rybakina, the 2022 Wimbledon winner, has advanced to the final without dropping a set and has been building towards the Australian Open, where she finished second to Aryna Sabalenka the previous year.
The second seed added, “I didn’t think I would play that well this week,” and disclosed that she had been ill before to traveling to Brisbane. “It’s an amazing start to the year for me.”
She reached her 15th WTA Tour final by hitting 26 winners and only 10 unforced mistakes against Noskova, making up 75% of her first serves.
She will play the victor of first seed Sabalenka versus former world no. 1 Victoria Azarenka, an all-Belarusian match.
While Rybakina has defeated Azarenka in their two prior confrontations, she has fallen short against Sabalenka in five of their seven meetings.
Except for the Australian Open final a year ago, all but two of Rybakina’s victories against Sabalenka required three sets to win.
With a hard 6-4, 7-6 (7/0) victory over Roman Safiullin, the unseeded player from Denmark advanced.
The Russian blasted 27 straight winners but also committed 28 unintentional errors, yet the world number eight was able to weather the storm.
Rune overcame Safiullin’s opening service game to win the first set, and while the Russian played better in the second set, she lost the tiebreak.
Rune will play either Australian Jordan Thompson, who defeated Rafael Nadal in a thrilling quarterfinal on Friday night, or second seed Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria in Sunday’s championship match.
