Defending Champion Elena Rybakina Advances to Third Round at Wimbledon, Norwegian Casper Rudd Upset

2023-07-07 07:29:40

London (AFP)

Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina, the “defending champion”, reached the third round of Wimbledon, the third of the four major tennis tournaments, by defeating the French veteran Alizee Cornet, who suffered from an injury in the second set 6-2, 7-6, while the Norwegian Casper Rudd, the fourth in the world, bid farewell. , from the second round, by falling to Britain’s Liam Brodie, ranked 142 in the world and participating with a wild card.
Rybakina, who won the title last year at the expense of Tunisian Anas Jaber, started the match strongly, breaking her opponent’s serve at the first opportunity, before repeating that in the last game to settle the first set easily, but the second was a violation, and there was no break in the serve.
In the eleventh inning, when the score was at 5-5, and after the two players were tied 11 times, Cornet slipped and fell hard on the grass, grabbed her right hip and screamed in pain.
She shed tears and asked for a time-out and came back after putting on the bandages. Rybakina finally settled the game after 27 minutes, before Cornet tied it 6-6, and imposed a tiebreaker that the third-ranked Kazakh in the world decided 7-2, next she meets Britain’s Katie Butler.
As for Ruud, he fell in five sets, with a score of 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 0-6, and the suffering of Ruud, who competed in the final of the Roland Garros championship nearly a month ago, continued, losing him against Serbian Novak Djokovic, on the grasslands that he does not like, as despite his arrival To three finals in major tournaments, his best result remains at Wimbledon, the second round last year and the current one.
The 24-year-old Norwegian reached the finals of Roland Garros and the US Open last year, losing them to Spaniards Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaras, respectively.
Veteran Swiss Stan Wawrinka set a date with Djokovic, the defending champion in the last four editions, in the third round, by defeating Argentine Thomas Martin Echeverri, while German Alexander Zverev finally reached the second round after rain disrupted the start of the tournament.
Wawrinka beat his opponent 6-3 4-6 6-4 6-2 in two and a half hours.