Defeating Daria Kasatkina, Elena Rybakina Wins Abu Dhabi Open
JAKARTA - World number five Elena Rybakina won her second title this season after beating 14th place in Kasatkina 6-1, 6-4 in the Abu Dhabi Open final, Sunday, February 11.Abu Dhabi Open's victory is the seventh title in Rybakina's career at the WTA Tour and fourth on the hard field. Rybakina's first seed recorded a 11-2 win win this season, having won his first title this year in Brisbane last month.He is equal to Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka for the second most wins on the tour after 13 wins recorded by Jelena Ostappenko.Despite losing, Kasatkina started the season well. Abu Dhabi is the second final of this new season after Adelaide in January. With a record of losing 9-4, Kasatkina ranks sixth in the tour in this year's match win.As broadcast by the WTA, as quoted from Antara, Sunday, February 11, Rybakina drove through the opening set quickly, partly assisted by 16 unforced errors made by Kasatkina.Kasatkina tried hard for three hours to get past Beatriz Haddad Maia in the semifinals. However, with Rybakina who managed to land 86 percent of its first service, Kasatkina was unable to find a breakthrough in the first set which lasted for 25 minutes.In the second set, Kasatkina cleverly increases aggression through the baseline. After only scoring two winners in the first set, Kasatkina became more opportunist in the second set and managed to equalize to 4-4.However, Rybakina stopped Kasatkina's aggressiveness with an extraordinary back game to take a 5-4 lead.After being stopped due to short rain when Rybakina served at 5-4, 30-0, the 2022 Wimbledon champion continued the game and calmly served to win.
Both players will soon go to Doha to take part in the first WTA 1000 tournament of the season at the Qatar Open. While Rybakina got a chance to qualify for the second half, Kasatkina is scheduled to play their first round match against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on Monday night.