Top-ranked Iga Swiatek was eliminated from the Australian Open by Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina in the fourth round, busting open the women’s draw.
Rybakina, the 22nd seed who would be in the top 10 if the WTA counted 2022 Wimbledon ranking points, took out Swiatek, who won the French Open and U.S. Open last year, 6-4, 6-4 to become the first quarterfinalist in Melbourne.
She next gets No. 17 Jelena Ostapenko, the 2017 French Open champion from Latvia who beat No. 7 Coco Gauff 7-5, 6-3.
No. 3 Jessica Pegula, who plays No. 20 Barbora Krejcikova later Sunday, is now the highest women’s seed left and the lone American woman left.
Pegula, who has never been past a major quarterfinal, is looking to end the longest U.S. women’s singles major title drought this century (since Sofia Kenin won the 2020 Australian Open) and longest U.S. men’s and women’s singles major drought in the Open Era (since 1968).
Last July, Rybakina became the second-lowest-ranked woman to win Wimbledon at No. 23 in the world. She was born and raised in Moscow but in 2018 switched nationality to Kazakhstan, which offered more financial support of her tennis career.
Wimbledon banned Russians and Belarusians from playing last year due to the war in Ukraine. The WTA and ATP responded by stripping the event of its ranking points.
