On February 17, Elena Rybakina’s run at the WTA 1000 tournament, the Qatar Open in Doha, came to an end in the final round when she faced off against the world no. 1, Iga Swiatek. The Kazakh player fell short, while Swiatek clinched victory with a score of 6(8):7(10), 2:6, QazMonitor reports citing the WTA.
Throughout the tournament, the Kazakh player defeated Zhu Lin (6:2, 6:1), Emma Navarro (6:1, 6:7, 6:4), Leylah Fernandez (6:4, 6:2), and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (6:2, 6:4) on her path to the final.
During the match, Rybakina hit three aces and committed two double faults, while Swiatek scored two aces and made four double faults. Despite the outcome, Rybakina maintains a slight lead in the head-to-head record against Swiatek, standing at 3:2.
For the Qatar Open final, Rybakina earned 650 points (ranking world no. 4 with 6,738 points) and $308,320 in prize money, while Swiatek earned $523,485 and 1,000 ranking points (holding the world no. 1 position with 10,300 points).
The Kazakh player leaves the Qatar Open as the season's match-wins leader, boasting a total of fifteen victories so far. She has surpassed Jelena Ostapenko, who has won fourteen matches in 2024. Notably, both Rybakina and Ostapenko stand out as the only players to have claimed multiple singles titles this year, each with two victories to their name.