Ruthless Elena Rybakina rolls past Maria Sakkari to reach Wimbledon third round

Elena Rybakina secured a commanding 6-3, 6-1 victory over a challenging Maria Sakkari, comfortably advancing to the third round of Wimbledon. The 2022 champion faced a tough draw against the Greek former world No. 3, but it posed no problem as she continues to build her remarkable record at the tournament, now standing at 21-3.

In the third round, she will face the winner between Clara Tauson (23rd seed) and Russia's Anna Kalinskaya.

First Set

The first set quickly swung in favor of the world No. 11, who secured an early break and, with a powerful serve, went up 2-0. Sakkari suffered from a slow start to the match, although she began to win her service games with relative ease and without conceding break opportunities to her opponent.

However, Sakkari never managed to trouble Rybakina on return and found herself at 3-5, needing to hold serve to stay in the set. Under pressure, Rybakina capitalized, taking the break that gave her the first set 6-3. The Kazakh had a first-serve percentage of just 37% (though winning 100% of those points), but she never conceded a single break point to her opponent.

Second Set

Sakkari started the second set with an early break, converting her first chance of the match, and seemed to be back in contention. However, the former Wimbledon champion took absolute control of the match from this point. Rybakina found more consistency on her serve (raising her first-serve percentage to 55%), while Sakkari's serve became less imposing.

Rybakina broke back and initiated a run of 16 consecutive points, propelling her from 0-1 to 5-1. The 26-year-old Kazakh ultimately secured three consecutive breaks on five opportunities, and showing no signs of weakness on her serve, closed out the victory 6-3, 6-1 against a Sakkari who could no longer keep pace. Sakkari notably failed to hit a single winner in the second set and accumulated 7 unforced errors.

Match Statistics Sakkari vs. Rybakina