Wimbledon 2024: Silent warrior Rybakina advances to quarter-finals as Kalinskaya hampered by injury

Elena Rybakina is a kind of silent warrior. A woman of few words and stoic demeanor, her tennis is of contrasting power.

Anna Kalinskaya experienced this in the fourth round of Wimbledon on Monday, falling 3-6, 0-3 behind in just 53 minutes to the 2022 champion before being forced out of the tournament with a wrist injury.

The abbreviated nature of the competition should not detract from Rybakina’s performance. She won 86 percent of her first serves, hit seven aces and executed 25 winners, showing she was close to the form that won her the title two years ago.

The Russian-born Kazakh hasn’t been really troubled, except in the first game when Kalinskaya broke her. The power of her shots may be soothing to fans, but to her opponents, they are nothing less than cannonballs.

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Trailing 1-3, the 25-year-old reeled off five consecutive games, a stretch during which she did not concede a single serve to her opponent. A slight wobble while trailing by a break point while serving for the first set was settled by a monstrous ace off the tee.

Kalinskaya, herself an excellent hitter, hit some delightful shots but the injury, for which she received a medical timeout before the eighth game of the first set, appeared to hamper her serve.

In the first game of the second stanza, she hit the ball out of frustration after a double fault. Another allowed Rybakina to make a crucial break of serve.

The crowd sensed the end was near and even cheered Kalinskaya at the change of ends. But she was broken again in the third game and it wasn’t long before the 25-year-old Russian waved the white flag.

On the same day, Italian Lorenzo Musetti stopped the superb run of Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in the fourth round by winning 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-2. The 21-year-old could have become the first lucky loser in Grand Slam history to reach the quarter-finals before Musetti could measure him.

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By the third round, Perricard, with his penchant for the net-rushing game, the kind that attracts more eyes and draws more footfalls at Wimbledon than anywhere else, had served an impressive 105 aces, ranking him seventh on the all-time list for most aces served in the first three rounds of men’s singles at a major grass-court tournament.

But Musetti blunted that weapon, conceding just 10 unreturned balls to reach his first Grand Slam quarterfinal. Perricard’s efforts, however, guarantee him a spot in the US Open main draw. After being outside the top 120 in the first week of May, he will soon break into the top 50.

“It will be my first Grand Slam with my ranking, so I’m very happy and excited,” he said. “It will be another chance to play a Grand Slam. I like the US Open. I know what I can do. I’ll be ready.”