{"id":744930,"date":"2026-08-21T08:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T08:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/744930\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T08:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T08:34:08","slug":"cincinnati-open-elena-rybakina-retires-with-ankle-injury-in-quarter-final-against-iga-swiatek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/744930\/","title":{"rendered":"Cincinnati Open: Elena Rybakina retires with ankle injury in quarter-final against Iga Swiatek"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elena Rybakina’s latest attempt to replace Aryna Sabalenka as world number one came to an abrupt end as she retired injured from her Cincinnati Open quarter-final against Iga Swiatek.<\/p>\n

The Kazakh second seed needed to reach the final to knock Sabalenka off the top of the rankings after the Belarusian suffered a surprise defeat by Sara Bejlek<\/a> in the fourth round on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

However, Rybakina managed just five games in her last-eight match against Poland’s Swiatek before retiring with a left ankle injury.<\/p>\n

Trailing 4-1, the Australian Open champion called for a medical timeout after pulling up at 40-40.<\/p>\n

Following a consultation with the trainer, Rybakina played only one more point before quitting.<\/p>\n

“Of course I feel not the greatest, I couldn’t even push from the serve,” Rybakina said.<\/p>\n

“It’s painful to walk. We’ll know more tomorrow when we have the MRI. It’s been bothering me for a long period of time, but felt like I had it under control.<\/p>\n

“It was feeling OK before the match but unfortunately one wrong movement, one landing, and something happened.”<\/p>\n

Swiatek, who beat Rybakina in the Canadian Open final<\/a> last week, will face American world number three Jessica Pegula in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n

The second seed is bidding to become just the second woman since 2004 to successfully defend a Cincinnati title, after Serena Williams in 2014 and 2015.<\/p>\n

“I hope Elena will be fine. The next tournament is the priority. I know this one is important as well. But US Open is US Open,” Swiatek said.<\/p>\n

The US Open, where Sabalenka is the two-time defending women’s singles champion, begins on Sunday, 30 August.<\/p>\n

“I hope she’s going be ready for that. She’s super close to being number one in the world,” Swiatek added.<\/p>\n

“It’s a shame. I thought we were playing a good match, but health is a priority. I hope she’s going to be OK.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elena Rybakina’s latest attempt to replace Aryna Sabalenka as world number one came to an abrupt end as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-744930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}