New York, Aug 29 (IANS) The 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan stormed into the fourth round of women’s singles with a commanding straight-sets win over the 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu of Great Britain in the US Open here on Friday.

In a third-round clash between two Grand Slam champions played in the Louis Armstrong Stadium, No. 9 seed Rybakina dropped just three games across two sets to win 6-1, 6-2 in just over an hour.

Rybakina advanced to the fourth round at Flushing Meadows for the first time in her seventh main-draw appearance. The Kazakhstani has now completed the full set of second-week showings at all four Grand Slams. She will next face either No. 7 seed Jasmine Paolini or another former Wimbledon champion, Marketa Vondrousova

Rybakina has now conceded just four games to Raducanu in two meetings combined. Their first meeting was in the first round of Sydney 2022, Raducanu’s fourth tournament after her shock victory at the 2021 US Open, and Rybakina won 6-0, 6-1.

Raducanu had said before the start of the tournament that 2025 marked “the first time I feel like I can come back to the US Open and really enjoy the memories”. After winning the 2021 women’s singles trophy, she was ousted in the first round in 2022 and 2024. On Friday, the 22-year-old Brit received plenty of encouragement from her new coach, Francisco Roig (Rafael Nadal’s former coach).

However, her game quickly unravelled. Rybakina easily won the first set 6-1, largely on her first serve despite making more unforced errors (10 to Raducanu’s five).

In the second set, Rybakina kept the pressure on, never allowing Raducanu to string together more than a few consecutive points. Whenever Raducanu made a winner or held serve, the noonday crowd (which included longtime Vogue editor Anna Wintour) roared with approval. Even so, Rybakina was never in danger of being broken. She served for the match with a 5-2 lead, after just 60 minutes of play, and seized the win on the first match point, when Raducanu’s backhand return went long.

“I’m pretty happy with the way I played today. It’s not easy to play Emma,” Rybakina said. “Sometimes the score doesn’t show, but she’s a tough competitor.”

“For some reason, the US Open through the years wasn’t really successful for me,” said Rybakina in her on-court interview. “So hopefully this year it will change.”

–IANS

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