Rybakina and Krejcikova Battle to Third Round at Wimbledon

Wimbledon, Great Britain — Wimbledon champions Elena Rybakina and Barbora Krejcikova both advanced to the third round on Thursday, but their journeys were quite different.

Rybakina, the 2022 winner, defeated Maria Sakkari decisively with a score of 6-1, 6-3 on No. 1 Court. The 11th seed showed strong play after initially dropping her serve early in the second set. After that hiccup, Rybakina didn’t lose another game. With this victory, she improved her head-to-head record against Sakkari to 5-1.

“Overall, I think I found a little bit better my rhythm on the serve later and played pretty confident,” Rybakina said, highlighting her performance where she hit 23 winners compared to Sakkari’s five.

On adjacent No. 2 Court, Krejcikova, the defending champion and 17th seed, faced a tougher challenge against American Caroline Dolehide. After dropping the first set, Krejcikova fought back to win in three sets with a final score of 6-4, 3-6, 6-2. Krejcikova saved her best tennis for the final set, hitting 10 winners and breaking Dolehide twice.

“[It was] definitely a very tough match today,” Krejcikova said. “The match was really up and down, but I’m very happy at the end that I was the one that won.”

Krejcikova now looks ahead to a match against No. 10 seed Emma Navarro, who has not played Krejcikova before. Navarro acknowledged the challenge, saying, “She [Krejcikova] knows she has what it takes to go all the way.”

Rybakina is set to meet either No. 23 seed Clara Tauson of Denmark or Anna Kalinskaya in the next round. Rybakina has historically performed well at Wimbledon, never losing before the Round of 16 in previous years.