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Dubai:\u00a0Scores\u00a0<\/a>| Draws<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Order of play<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n She overwhelmed her Australian opponent, winning the first eight points of the match and 12 of the first 13 on her way to a 5-0 lead. After Birrell held to love, Rybakina served out the set in just 23 minutes. The Australian Open champ won 24 points to Birrell\u2019s nine in the opening set and converted 100% of her first-serve points.<\/p>\n \u201cI started well and the serve was helping,\u201d Rybakina said in her on-court interview. \u201cThen in the second set, the energy dropped a little bit. I was not pushing as much with my legs. Overall, I\u2019m happy with the result, with the match, and now I just need to rest and prepare for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n Even with that slight dip, her control of the match never wavered. She broke for a 2-1 lead in the second set and consolidated with a hold to love, then won five straight points from 40-0 down to break again for 4-1. She closed out the match with a gutsy hold, saving three break points.<\/p>\n She finished with a near-perfect 91% mark on first-serve points won and took 63% of points on her second serve as well. She was sharp from the baseline, too, striking 19 winners — many off the forehand — nearly double Birrell\u2019s total.<\/p>\n The win improves the Kazakh\u2019s record to 6-0 in opening matches in Dubai and sets up a third-round meeting with Antonia Ruzic, their first at the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz level.<\/p>\n In addition to her first win over Ruzic, she\u2019ll also look to extend her dominance in the Middle East. Since 2023, Rybakina has collected 23 wins in WTA-level events in the region, the most of any player.<\/p>\n \u201cI spend so much time here,\u201d Rybakina told reporters after the match. \u201cSo it feels like home. Actually, a lot of people who work here always say, \u2018Welcome back, welcome home,\u2019 and it\u2019s really nice.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis tournament is actually quick, for me at least. I would gladly have it be a little bit longer with maybe a day in between (matches), but it\u2019s a really nice atmosphere on the court and I feel a lot of support, so it\u2019s really nice to play here.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n Elena Rybakina looked every bit the No. 1 seed in her Dubai opener Tuesday night, racing to a 6-1, 6-2 win over Kimberly Birrell in 60 minutes to reach the third round. Dubai:\u00a0Scores\u00a0| Draws\u00a0|\u00a0Order of play\u00a0 She overwhelmed her Australian opponent, winning the first eight points of the match and 12 of the first 13 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Rybakina-aces-opening-test-in-Dubai-ousts-Birrell-in-one.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20968,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20966\/revisions\/20968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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