Elena Rybakina was one of the leading favourites to win the women\u2019s singles title at Wimbledon 2026, but her campaign ended with a shock third round exit.<\/p>\n
World No 2 Rybakina was upset 7-6(4), 6-1 by 25th seed Elise Mertens on No.1 Court at the All England Club on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Rybakina<\/a> was aiming to win a second Wimbledon title and third Grand Slam overall, having won her maiden major in London in 2022.<\/p>\n The big-serving Kazakh, who has secured 13 WTA Tour singles titles, has not reached a grass-court final since her Wimbledon<\/a> triumph.<\/p>\n In her on-court interview, Mertens said: \u201cI have no words actually. I feel a little bit like\u2026 \u2018woo.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very happy I won that first set and kept the momentum going. She\u2019s an incredible player. She\u2019s won Wimbledon in the past. A really tough opponent.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked about her nerves when closing out the match, the Belgian said: \u201cI mean, I think you could see that.\u201d<\/p>\n Aryna Sabalenka \u2018red flag\u2019 could derail her Wimbledon title bid, says Serena Williams\u2019 ex-coach<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Wimbledon offered strong response to Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka\u2019s boycott plans<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n Rybakina began Wimbledon with a chance of overtaking Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> at the top of the WTA Rankings to become world No 1 for the first time.<\/p>\n The 27-year-old could have guaranteed her ascent to top spot by winning Wimbledon, while a final or semi-final result would have been enough if Sabalenka had lost a round earlier than her.<\/p>\n However, Rybakina\u2019s third round defeat means she will remain in second position, and Sabalenka will retain the No 1 ranking.<\/p>\n Sabalenka held a 947-point advantage over Rybakina at the start of Wimbledon, but the 28-year-old Belarusian is defending 780 points from her semi-final run last year.<\/p>\n Rybakina, meanwhile, was defending just 130 points from a third round exit 12 months ago, and her defeat at the same stage this year means she will remain on 8,143 points.<\/p>\n Sabalenka, who started Wimbledon with 9,090 points, currently has 8,550 points in the Live WTA Rankings ahead of her fourth round match against Naomi Osaka on Sunday.<\/p>\n The four-time Grand Slam winner will move onto 8,740 points if she reaches the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n Rybakina will now have to wait until the North American hard-court swing to have another opportunity to catch Sabalenka.<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Serena Williams\u2019 former coach responds after star accused of giving \u2018cold\u2019 handshake during Wimbledon loss<\/a> The post How Elena Rybakina\u2019s shock Wimbledon exit affects world No 1 ranking battle with Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Elena Rybakina was one of the leading favourites to win the women\u2019s singles title at Wimbledon 2026, but her campaign ended with a shock third round exit. World No 2 Rybakina was upset 7-6(4), 6-1 by 25th seed Elise Mertens on No.1 Court at the All England Club on Saturday. Rybakina was aiming to win […]<\/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-2433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2433","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=2433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2433\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Wimbledon News<\/h2>\n
Elena Rybakina misses world No 1 opportunity at Wimbledon<\/h2>\n
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