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The frustration has to go: US tennis star Serena Williams was inferior to Kazakh Jelena Rybakina
Photo: CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT / AFP
Tennis superstar Serena Williams has to wait for her 24th Grand Slam title. The 39-year-old American lost on Sunday evening in Paris in the second round of the French Open against Kazakh Jelena Rybakina 3: 6, 5: 7 and thus missed the quarter-finals. Rybakina converted her first match point after 77 minutes and meets the Russian Anastassija Sergejewna Pavlyuchenkova in the quarter-finals.
Williams never found her rhythm against 21-year-old Rybakina.
The long-time number one played with a thick bandage on her thigh and sometimes seemed clearly handicapped.
Rybakina, on the other hand, played carefree, in the end kept her nerve and moved into a Grand Slam quarter-finals for the first time in her career.
“It's just the one point here and the one point that can change the course of the match.
I'm not winning these points at the moment, ”Williams said after the game.
Favorites eliminated in rows
Even before that, Roland Garros had not had a good star for the favorites: The world number one Ashleigh Barty had given up injured during her second round game.
World number two Naomi Osaka had retired from the tournament for the sake of her mental health after a controversy arose over her decision to stay away from the mandatory press conferences during the tournament.
Co-favorite Petra Kvitová sustained an ankle injury during a press conference.
With defending champion Iga Swiatek from Poland and US-American Sofia Kenin, only two top ten players are represented in the tournament, both of whom still have their last 16 games ahead of them on Monday.
Swiatek and Kenin played the final last year.
Williams won her last Grand Slam tournament so far in 2017 at the Australian Open, before taking a six-month break from competition due to the birth of her daughter.
Since then, she has tried in vain to set the Australian Margaret Court's record.
cev / dpa / sid