If the early returns on Elena Rybakina\u2019s 2026 season are any indication, the rest of the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz should be on high alert.<\/p>\n
Brisbane: Scores<\/a> | Draws<\/a> | Order of play<\/a><\/p>\n Rybakina ended 2025 on a tear, sneaking into the WTA Finals as the last qualifier before going on to win the year-end championships. She appears to have carried that momentum into the new year, following a flawless second-round win over Zhang Shuai with an equally impressive straight-sets victory over No. 15 seed Paula Badosa.<\/p>\n The 2024 Brisbane champion needed just 1 hour and 25 minutes to defeat the Spaniard 6-3, 6-2 at Pat Rafter Arena on Thursday, booking her spot in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s always tough battles against Paula,\u201d Rybakina said after the match. \u201cShe has great shots, she plays really fast and has a very good serve, so it was not easy. I started a little bit slow and was struggling with my serve too. But I\u2019m happy that I managed to win.\u201d<\/p>\n Rybakina did indeed get off to a slow start. Badosa won the first seven points of the match and eight of the first nine to capture an early break and a 2-0 lead. But Rybakina quickly steadied herself, breaking right back and fending off Badosa\u2019s further advances to level the set at 2-all.<\/p>\n After Badosa saved a break point and held in the next game, Rybakina rattled off four straight games to close out the opening set.<\/p>\n That surge became part of a run of seven consecutive games, as Rybakina raced out to a 3-0 lead in the second set. Badosa briefly halted the slide with a hold for 3-1, but it wasn\u2019t enough. By match end, Rybakina had won nine of the last 11 games.<\/p>\n \u201cI was trying to focus one [game] at a time,\u201d Rybakina said. \u201cThe serve was not helping so much, so I had to manage the points and stay aggressive on the return. I still have a lot of things to work on for the next match, but hopefully it will be better.\u201d<\/p>\n Here are some takeaways from Rybakina\u2019s win over Badosa:<\/p>\n Streaks remain intact: Three streaks continued for Rybakina on Thursday.<\/p>\n 13 straight wins: Ties her career-best winning streak, as she previously won 13 straight between February and March of 2023. Her last loss came to Aryna Sabalenka in the Wuhan quarterfinals last October. Consummate ball-striking: On a day where she struggled on serve, Rybakina\u2019s ball-striking carried her. Whether she was playing her forehand or her backhand, it didn\u2019t matter, as she struck every ball with conviction, especially on big points.<\/p>\n She sealed the first set with a forehand winner on set point, then opened the second set with a hold before drilling a backhand down the line to convert a break point in the next game. She hit 13 winners to just 7 unforced errors in the second set and finished with 24 winners and 21 unforced errors overall.<\/p>\n What\u2019s ahead: Rybakina will face No. 11 seed Karolina Muchova in the quarterfinals. The head-to-head is level at 1-1, but their last meeting came all the way back in 2023 at Indian Wells.<\/p>\n Rybakina won that quarterfinal match in three sets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the early returns on Elena Rybakina\u2019s 2026 season are any indication, the rest of the WTA Tour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428,1959],"class_list":{"0":"post-394629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFour straight wins over Badosa: The streak dates back to 2023, with this latest victory giving her the edge in their head-to-head.
\nUnbeaten in Brisbane: The 2024 champion is now a perfect 7-0 at the event.<\/p>\n