{"id":239635,"date":"2025-10-25T17:19:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T17:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/239635\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T17:19:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T17:19:18","slug":"elena-rybakina-pulls-out-of-pan-pacific-open-semifinal-with-back-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/239635\/","title":{"rendered":"Elena Rybakina pulls out of Pan Pacific Open semifinal with back pain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">TOKYO (AP) \u2014 Elena Rybakina pulled out of the Pan Pacific Open on Saturday, citing a back problem a day after her quarterfinal victory clinched the last remaining spot for the WTA Finals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The 2022 Wimbledon champion was due to face Linda Noskova in the semifinals at the Tokyo tournament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cI\u2019m very sorry I can\u2019t play today,\u201d Rybakina said in a statement. \u201dI have been having problems with my back this week and can\u2019t play 100%.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Noskova will face Belinda Bencic in Sunday\u2019s final after the Swiss player beat Sofia Kenin 7-6 (5), 3-6, 6-2 in the other semifinal match.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Bencic heads into her 10th career final, which comes 10 years after her previous Pan Pacific Open final appearance, a loss in 2015 to Agnieszka Radwanska. Bencic also won the Olympic singles gold medal and doubles silver in Tokyo four years ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Rybakina beat Victoria Mboko 6-3, 7-6 (4) on Friday to take the eighth spot for next month\u2019s lucrative WTA Finals in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">At the WTA Finals, scheduled Nov. 1-8, Rybakina will join top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff, Amanda Anisimova, Madison Keys, Jessica Pegula, and Jasmine Paolini.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Gauff is the defending champion in Riyadh. The American beat Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in last year\u2019s final and received $4.8 million in prize money.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\"> AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOKYO (AP) \u2014 Elena Rybakina pulled out of the Pan Pacific Open on Saturday, citing a back problem&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-239635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}