(Madrid) Kazakh player and world No.4 Elena Rybakina qualified painfully for the last four in Madrid, beating 4-6, 7-6 (7/4), 7-5 her compatriot Yulia Putintseva ( 50e) Wednesday in the quarter-final, after saving two match points.
One of the women in form at the moment with five finals and three titles (Stuttgart, Abu Dhabi, Brisbane) since the start of the year, Rybakina, aged 24, had so far not dropped a single set to her opponents in the Spanish capital.
However, she has long been dominated by Putintseva, 29 years old and who had won their only two clashes on the circuit, in Rome in 2020 and Indian Wells in 2021.
Nervous and making multiple errors (eight double faults in total), Rybakina quickly gave in in the first set. Still as inconsistent in the second round, she nevertheless managed to hang on to break the break and still win in the tiebreaker.
Again in great difficulty in the third set, all seemed lost for the winner of Wimbledon 2022, trailing 5-2 with two match points for her opponent.
Until Putintseva collapsed. After failing to convert her match points, the 29-year-old Kazakh collapsed, losing five games in a row, and the match after 2 hours 50 minutes of struggle.
In the semi-final, Rybakina will face either the young Russian Mirra Andreeva (43e), returning to Madrid a year after her revelation on the circuit and who celebrated her 17th birthday on Monday, the Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, world No.2 and title holder in Madrid.