World No. 2 Iga Swiatek shocks 5th Seed Elena Rybakina in Australian Open 2026

Fifth seed Elena Rybakina upset world number 2 Iga Swiatek to sprint to the semi-finals of the Australian Open on Wednesday and deprived the Polish star of her most recent attempt to take a career Grand Slam.

The Kazakh of Moscow recovered from his troubles with serving early in his career by defeating the second seed 7-5, 6-1 and will now play either Jessica Pegula or Amanda Anisimova to be in the final the next day. Rybakina was a finalist at Melbourne on one previous occasion, in 2023, when she lost in three challenging sets to Aryan Sabalenka. Since then, she had not surpassed the last eight in Melbourne.

However, the 2022 Wimbledon champion has been among the former players on the tour in recent months, and she has won 18 of her last 19 matches, with the only defeat this month in the Brisbane quarter-finals.

This is her fourth post-Wimbledon fight poker solid, and her first Slam in fourteen years.

“Really pleased with the win,” said the 26-year-old. “We know each other pretty well, and I was just trying to stay aggressive.

“I feel like in the first set for both of us, the first serve was not really working, so we were just trying to step in on the second serve and put pressure on each other.

“I think in the second set I just started to play more freely and served better.”

She is a four-time French Open, US and Wimbledon champion, yet she has yet to become a Melbourne Paro champion.

It was the fifth match between Swiatek and Rybakina, who had met 11 times previously, with the Pole winning 6-5.

Rybakina, however, defeated the WTA Finals in Riyadh.

Swiatek created an advantage on the serve of Rybakina, who received only one of her services initially, but she returned immediately to ensure a tie in the match. 

The serve of Rybakina was not working, and the Pole attempted another three break points in the following game, yet all of them were saved as the fifth seed saved himself.

The Kazakh made certain adjustments, and her serve eventually began to reach its target.

They had not much to separate them until Swiatek came to remain in the set at 5-6 as Rybakina went to make her shots and got a conversion on the second set-point opportunity.

It was written on the wall that Swiatek was doomed since Rybakina had won the last 21 matches she had played after winning the first set, and she attacked early with a smoking forehand return that earned a break to love.

Then she stacked 3-0, and as two aces in a row raised the score to 4-1, there was no turning back for the Pole.