The defense of the title of the defending champion Aryna Sabalenka reached a final abrupt in Cincinnati when Elena Rybakina produced a powerful performance to reach the semifinal.
The ninth star of Kazakh Star dominated from the beginning, using his great service and his clean batting to overwhelm the defending champion and reserve his place in the last four.
She assured her seventh victory in her career over a better classified player and organized a great success clash with IgA Swiatek from Poland in a Wimbledon champions confrontation.
Rybakina shot 11 Aces throughout the game, winning an impressive 81% of points in her first service, while saving the five rest points she faced when she secured her fifth victory over Sabalenka in 12 meetings.
“I am happy with the service. It was the key,” said the number three of the Rybakina world.
“We are both great batters. Today I served very well. If Aryna serves well, it’s completely different. I hope to continue like this.”
Previously, the third Swiatek seed advanced to its first semifinal of the WTA 1000 in 15 months, surpassing Anna Kalinskaya de Russia 6-3 6-4.
Kalinskaya, who had defeated Swiatek at his only previous meeting, launched an energetic fight when saving four parts points, before the winner of Grand Slam six times turned his fifth opportunity into the service to seal the victory.
“I just played my game,” Swiatek said. “Sure, it was not easy. Just happy to be solid and I had the intensity of applying pressure.”
Veronika Kudermetova went out to Varvara Gracheva 6-1 6-2 to reach her first Cincinnati semifinal. The Russian seems to return to the way he once took her to Top 10, obtaining her first place from WTA 1000 in the last place since 2023.
The next time he will face the second coconut size or seventh planted Jasmine Paolini in the semifinals.
In the male raffle, the second sown Carlos Alcaraz survived a battle of three sets against the ninth Russian sown Andrey Rublev, claiming a 6-3 4-6 7-5 victory to reach the last four.
The Spanish was far from being his best, making 15 non -forced mistakes and three double failures in the decision maker, but capitalizing on his only starting point, courtesy of a double Rublev failure, to ensure his 15th consecutive victory of Masters 1000.
“Playing someone like Andrey, when you lose the approach at two or three points, you can cost you the set or the game. I keep strongly mentally and that’s what I am more proud,” said Alcaraz.
“It’s just accepting the moment, accepting that I am playing a third set, which will be a really difficult battle, and I love it,” he added after establishing a confrontation with the third sown Alex Zverev or the fifth planted American Ben Shelton.
The five -time champion to the great Slam Alcaraz, winner of 37 of his last 39 games, advanced to his 12th Masters 1000 SEMI, matching the brand of the Italian sower Jannik Sinner, who faces the Frenchman Terence Atmanent in the other last clash of four.
