Elena Rybakina now has 100 wins under her belt at WTA 1000 tournaments. The Kazakh player began her journey at the Mutua Madrid Open with a hard-fought victory over Elena-Gabriela Ruse, reaching a milestone few ever surpass; a century of wins in the main draws of tournaments in this category. With this result, she becomes the tenth active player to surpass the barrier.<\/p>\n
It was by no means a comfortable start in the Caja Magica for Rybakina, who had to dig deep for the win, regrouping after dropping the first set 6-4, and facing an uphill battle in the third. Ruse went 5-4 up, and the Kazakh was forced to serve to stay in the match. At that point, with no margin for error, Rybakina held, then broke immediately, and finally sealed a gritty comeback for a 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 victory.<\/p>\n
The milestone arrives at a moment that aptly illustrates Rybakina\u2019s current influence on tour. It\u2019s true that Aryna Sabalenka has taken much of the media limelight this season, but the Kazakh is progressing with remarkable consistency. She has already won the first Grand Slam of the year and arrived in Madrid as the player with the most wins in 2026 (25 before starting her assault on the Caja Magica). Now, she has 26.<\/p>\n
Madrid would appear to be a particularly enticing challenge for Rybakina. She is making her sixth appearance at the tournament, where her best result was the semi-finals in 2024, against Sabalenka. A final continues to elude her at an event that increasingly suits her style of play.<\/p>\n
Although Rybakina\u2019s game might suggest a player that is naturally suited to fast courts, clay is far from unfamiliar territory for her. Five of her thirteen individual WTA titles have come on the red stuff; Bucharest 2019, Rome 2023, Stuttgart 2024, Strasbourg 2025 and Stuttgart 2026. That\u2019s almost half of her trophy collection. One of her two WTA 1000 titles, in Rome, was also won on the surface.<\/p>\n
Rybakina has just lifted the title in Stuttgart, the first major test of the European clay swing, and in Madrid she has started by doing exactly what sets the greats apart from the rest; winning without her best. The Kazakh now boasts 100 WTA 1000 victories but has unfinished business in Madrid. She will now square off against Qinwen Zheng for a place among the last 16 in the tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Elena Rybakina now has 100 wins under her belt at WTA 1000 tournaments. The Kazakh player began her journey at the Mutua Madrid Open with a hard-fought victory over Elena-Gabriela Ruse, reaching a milestone few ever surpass; a century of wins in the main draws of tournaments in this category. With this result, she becomes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":107591,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[837,843],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-noticias-tenis-en","category-noticias-tenis-femenino-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107606,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107605\/revisions\/107606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}