(Photo credit score: Geoff Burke)
Three weekends in the past, Elena Rybakina was lifting the U.S. Open trophy and claiming the World No. 1 rating.
Sports is usually a humbling expertise.
In her first match on the China Open in Beijing, Rybakina turned simply the second participant to lose in her first match because the world’s top-ranked participant.
Moreover, the Kazakhstani fell to Alina Charaeva, a 24-year-old Armenian who was enjoying in solely her seventeenth WTA main-draw match.
Charaeva prevailed 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, displaying a dominant service sport within the deciding set.
Per OptaAce, Charaeva turned the lowest-ranked participant (No. 118) to file a comeback win in opposition to a World No. 1 since WTA rankings have been first printed in 1975.
‘It’s sort of a dream come true,’ Charaeva stated in her post-match interview. ‘I used to be simply attempting to remain actually onerous mentally and hold believing that in some unspecified time in the future I may flip it round once more to my aspect. And I assume I simply by no means stopped believing.’
Charaeva gained 20 of 26 service factors within the third set and didn’t face a break level. She broke Rybakina within the sixth sport to guide 4-2, and solely misplaced one level in her last two service video games.
Rybakina joined Japan’s Naomi Osaka (2019) as the one two gamers to drop their first matches as World No. 1.
‘Obviously it was a really powerful day on the market,’ Rybakina stated after the match. ‘There was quite a bit occurring after the U.S. Open victory. I did not get quite a lot of probabilities to sleep and recuperate. Congratulations to Alina. She performed an excellent match, and I felt my foot a bit of bit on the finish of the match. So it is time to relaxation a bit of bit and see what’s subsequent within the upcoming weeks.’
The different main upset was 16-year-old Xinran Sun getting previous No. 27 Cristina Busca 6-4, 7-5. The Chinese teenager, who was ranked No. 1 on the ITF Junior Circuit, will face Coco Gauff within the third spherical.
In different upsets of seeded gamers, Kamilla Rakhimova of Uzbekistan edged Canadian No. 23 Leylah Fernandez 6-2, 4-6, 6-3; China’s Qinwen Zheng superior previous Russian Anna Kalinskaya 6-7 (4), 6-4, 3-0, ret.; and Great Britain’s Sonia Kartal upset No. 31 Xinyu Wang of China, 6-3, 6-2.
Seeded gamers to advance to the third spherical have been No. 6 Elina Svitolina of Ukraine, No. 8 Iga Swiatek of Poland, No. 9 Belinda Bencic of Switzerland, No. 10 Iva Jovic, No. 24 Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia and No. 25 Maria Sakkari of Greece.
–Field Level Media