Elena Rybakina\u2019s title run at the Ningbo Open has seen her put one foot on the plane to Riyadh for the final spot at this year\u2019s WTA Finals.<\/p>\n
Former world No 3 Rybakina<\/a> had been an outsider for the season-ending tournament<\/a> for most of the year as she reached only one final, the Internationaux de Strasbourg in May, lingering outside the qualification places.<\/p>\n But the 2022 Wimbledon winner\u2019s quarter-final at the Wuhan Open and Ningbo title, coupled with Mirra Andreeva\u2019s loss of form in recent weeks, has resulted in a late surge for the former, and she is now the favourite to qualify.<\/p>\n After winning two WTA 1000 titles \u2013 Dubai Tennis Championships and Indian Wells Open \u2013 during the first three months of the season, Andreeva found herself among the top three in the WTA Finals Race To Riyadh.<\/p>\n She stayed in the top five for several months before slipping down with poor results during the Asia swing as she lost in the round of 16 at the China Open and her opening matches at the Wuhan Open and Ningbo Open.<\/p>\n With Jasmine Paolini reaching the quarter-final at this week\u2019s WTA 500 event, she overtook Andreeva in the standings and secured her place at the WTA Finals \u2013 leaving Andreeva and Rybakina battling it out for the eighth and final spot.<\/p>\n Marta Kostyuk interview: Why Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek have a big advantage over me<\/a><\/p>\n Pan Pacific Open draw: Fernandez and Mboko\u2019s Canadian No 1 battle as Rybakina handed nightmare path<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n And Rybakina has gone on to win the Ningbo title, beating Ekaterina Alexandrova 3-6, 6-0, 6-2 to win the 10th title of her career, to move within striking distance of her young Russian rival<\/p>\n Rybakina will play at the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo this coming week, but she needs to reach the semi-final to overtake Andreeva.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you so much to my team for always pushing me to be better,\u201d Rybakina said after the match.<\/p>\n \u201cEspecially at the end of the season, it\u2019s not easy, but without you I would not be here. So, thanks again, and hopefully we can push a little more next week.\u201d<\/p>\n That final push comes in Tokyo and there is good news for the Kazakh player as her big rival for qualification won\u2019t play this week so her destiny is in her own hands: win two matches and qualify.<\/p>\n But she hasn\u2019t received the easiest draw at the WTA 500 tournament as Rybakina \u2013 who has a first-round bye \u2013 will likely face Leylah Fernandez in the second round while she is projected to meet Victoria Mboko in the quarter-final.<\/p>\n Rybakina is looking to reach the WTA Finals for a third consecutive year, but she is yet to make it out of the group stage as she won only one round robin match in both 2023 and 2024.<\/p>\n The post Why there is a clear favourite in WTA Finals battle between Mirra Andreeva and Elena Rybakina<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Elena Rybakina\u2019s title run at the Ningbo Open has seen her put one foot on the plane to Riyadh for the final spot at this year\u2019s WTA Finals. Former world No 3 Rybakina had been an outsider for the season-ending tournament for most of the year as she reached only one final, the Internationaux de […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}WTA News<\/h2>\n
Why Rybakina Is The Favourite<\/h2>\n