Elena Rybakina suffered a surprise fourth round exit at the 2026 Madrid Open, and the defeat has damaged her hopes of catching world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka.<\/p>\n
The world No 2\u00a0was upset 7-6(8), 6-4 by 56th-ranked Anastasia Potapova on Monday night in the fourth round in Madrid.<\/p>\n
Rybakina<\/a> served for the opening set at 5-4 and had a set point in a pulsating tiebreak before Potapova converted her third set point.<\/p>\n The two-time Grand Slam champion then led 4-2 in the second set, but Potapova won the next four games to seal a stunning triumph.<\/p>\n Potapova is competing as a lucky loser in Madrid, having lost to fellow Austrian Sinja Kraus in the final round of qualifying. The 25-year-old defeated Jelena Ostapenko and Zhang Shuai prior to her win over Rybakina.<\/p>\n \u201cI got my second chance during this tournament, and I think I\u2019m using it pretty (well). I\u2019m just enjoying being here,\u201d Potapova said in her on-court interview.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s number two. She\u2019s one of the best right now. Of course I\u2019m feeling grateful for this win, but I don\u2019t want to stop. I want to keep improving and maybe get closer to these girls in the meantime.\u201d<\/p>\n How Coco Gauff\u2019s Madrid Open exit affects WTA Rankings as Iga Swiatek gets boost<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Elena Rybakina has no \u2018trust\u2019 in line-calling system after \u2018stolen point\u2019 in Madrid Open<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as\u00a0<\/span>a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n Rybakina began the Madrid Open on 8,500 points in second position \u2014 2,395 points adrift of Sabalenka in top spot.<\/p>\n By reaching the last 16, Rybakina has improved her points total by 55 points to 8,555 as she bettered her third round result at the 2025 Madrid Open.<\/p>\n The 26-year-old Kazakh has, however, missed the opportunity to significantly close the gap to Sabalenka.<\/p>\n Sabalenka is the reigning champion in Madrid, which means she was defending 1,000 ranking points and was on 9,895 points in the Live WTA Rankings prior to the start of her campaign.<\/p>\n The 27-year-old Belarusian has collected 215 points by reaching the quarter-finals at Caja Magica, which has taken her points tally to 10,110 prior to her last eight match against Hailey Baptiste.<\/p>\n This puts Sabalenka 1,555 points ahead of Rybakina in the Live WTA Rankings.<\/p>\n Sabalenka is a firm favourite to defend her title as she is one of just two top 10 players in the quarter-final line-up along with world No 8 Mirra Andreeva.<\/p>\n If Sabalenka does secure her fourth Madrid Open crown, she will return to 10,895 points and be 2,340 points clear of Rybakina.<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Sabalenka continues Madrid Open pursuit as Swiatek speaks on retirement \u2013 tennis news round-up<\/a> The post How Elena Rybakina\u2019s shock Madrid Open loss affects Aryna Sabalenka world No 1 chase<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Elena Rybakina suffered a surprise fourth round exit at the 2026 Madrid Open, and the defeat has damaged her hopes of catching world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka. The world No 2\u00a0was upset 7-6(8), 6-4 by 56th-ranked Anastasia Potapova on Monday night in the fourth round in Madrid. Rybakina served for the opening set at 5-4 […]<\/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-2100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100","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=2100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}WTA Tour News<\/h2>\n
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