• The first racket of the Baltics will compete in the singles quarter-finals Alon Ostapenko (WTA 17th) and Kazakhstan’s number one Yelena Rybakina (WTA 25th).
• The balance in mutual matches is 2-0 in favor of the Latvian tennis player. In October 2019, Ostapenko won on the hard surface in Linz Hall (7:6, 6:1), and in June 2021, she was superior on the grass in Eastbourne (6:4, 6:1) – in both cases, the top-ranked Kazakh at that time was listed as a slight favorite.
• Last August, Rybakina and Ostapenko held a joint training session in New York. It was agreed that the loser of the tiebreak would finance the winner’s lunch: the Latvian tennis player triumphed 7-2 (the Kazakh player could not be blamed, Ostapenko hit several “winners”), the photographer informed about the incident.
• Ribakina’s strongest weapon is her serve.
• The Kazakh reveals that she will try to hold her serve, play aggressively and dictate the rhythm of the game in the quarterfinals of the “Australian Open” against Ostapenko.
• In the statistics columns of the 2022 Australian Open women’s tournament, Rybakina is the third best server with 24 runs in four games, while Ostapenko has accumulated 14 runs and is in 14th place. The Kazakh holds the second position in the top of the fastest runs (195 km/h), and is also the leader in scoring points after her first serve (82%).
• Ostapenko is the best scorer of the tournament on the opponent’s second serve (59 points), Rybakina is sixth in this top (49).
• The organizers of the “Australian Open” have not created a pure winners chart. In this indicator, Ostapenko is definitely one of the leaders of the tournament (127), while Rybakina has collected 99 “winners” – both of them played nine sets each.
• During her career, the currently 25-year-old Ostapenko has triumphed in five major tournaments, while Rybakina, who is two years younger and seven centimeters taller, has three WTA titles (2019, 2020, 2022).
• At the Grand Slam level, Ostapenko has a French Open title (2017) and a Wimbledon semifinal (2018), but her highest achievement at the Australian Open is now the quarterfinals. Rybakina surprisingly triumphed in the Wimbledon championship last year, played in the quarterfinals of the French Open in 2021, while her highest achievement in the Australian Open is now the quarterfinals.
• Rybakina, the 2022 Wimbledon champion, would have earned 2,000 points, which would have allowed her to break into the “top 6” of the world ranking, however, no points were awarded then.
• Ostapenko went 34-19 in singles last year, while Rybakina went 43-21.
• In the first three months of 2023, Ostapenko must defend 58% of the points earned in the entire last year in order to at least not lose positions in the ranking. At the “Australian Open” she managed to defend the 130 points earned last year for the third round. It is worth saving now to prepare for February, when you will have to defend a lot of points: 185 + 470 + 350 = 1005.
• In the first three months of the new year, Rybakina must defend 41% of the points earned last year in order to at least not lose positions in the ranking. She lost in the second round of the Australian Open last year.
• The quarterfinals of Ostapenko and Rybakina are scheduled on January 24 after 3.30 our time or 12.30 local time when it could be 25 degrees. On January 17, it was 33-35 degrees for several hours, but then it became much colder, which is beneficial for the Latvian tennis player.
• The match between Ostapenko and Rybakina will be held at Rod Laver Arena, the main stadium of the Australian Open with 14,820 seats. Among outdoor tennis stadiums, it is the second largest in the Southern Hemisphere.
• Video: Rybakina perceives the distortion of the surname with a standard smile.
• The winner of the duel between Ostapenko and Rybakina will enter the semi-finals, where they will face the American Jessica Pegula (WTA 3rd) or the neutral athlete Victoria Azarenka (WTA 24th).
• In the round of 16 of the tournament, Yelena Rybakina beat world leader Iga Šviontek – 6:4, 6:4.
Ostapenko oponentes “Australian Open 2022”
| Round 1 | #101 Dajana Jastremska (Ukraine) | 6:4 6:2 |
| Round 2 | #81 Anna Bondar (Hungary) | 7:6(5) 5:7 6:0 |
| 3rd round | #95 Katerina Baindla (Ukraine) | 6:3 6:0 |
| 1/8 final | #7 Koko Gofa (ASV) | 7:5 6:3 |
| 1/4 final | #25 Yelena Rybakina (Kazakhstan) |
• on January 24, approximately at At 8:30 a.m. in the mixed doubles quarterfinals, the Latvian-Spanish duo Aļona Ostapenko/Dāvids Vega will play against 36-year-old Sanja Mirza and 42-year-old Rohan Bopanna from India.
Resources used:
ausopen.com
