Elena Rybakina felt there were plenty of positives to take from her Qatar Open campaign despite losing to Victoria Mboko in the quarterfinals. The 2026 Australian Open champion lost in three sets to the highly rated Canadian, suffering a 5-7, 6-4, 4-6 defeat.
Rybakina’s defeat meant that the top nine seeds have now been eliminated from the WTA 1000 event, with Mboko facing Jeļena Ostapenko in the semifinals to reach the final. Maria Sakkari and Karolína Muchová will meet in the other semifinal.
Elena Rybakina Upbeat Despite Defeat to Victoria Mboko at Qatar Open
Defeat to Mboko ended Rybakina’s winning run at nine. But the 26-year-old, who missed out on the opportunity to move up to world No. 2, was pleased with the fight she put up after a grueling last 16 encounter against Qinwen Zheng.
“It was a tough match and I’m actually happy that I managed to give this fight. I hadn’t played such long matches in a long time. In Australia, we always had a day in between and I was playing all the matches in two sets except for the final,” Rybakina said post-match (via Tennis.com).
“I think it was still a good tournament for me. I had to do some stuff outside of the court. I think it’s a good preparation, even for the other tournaments,” she added.
Rybakina was pushed to the limit by the returning Zheng in the Round of 16, but ultimately prevailed 4-6, 6-2, 7-5. But the short gap between matches left her running out of steam in her quarterfinal against the 10th seed.
MORE: Victoria Mboko Reveals She ‘Never Expected’ What’s Happened in Doha As Elena Rybakina Sent Packing
The Kazakh star will now switch her focus to the Dubai Tennis Championships, where she reached the semifinals last year.
The Stats Behind Rybakina’s Resurgence
Rybakina has enjoyed quite the resurgence on the WTA Tour over the last six months, from winning the WTA Finals to defeating the likes of Iga Świątek and Aryna Sabalenka en route to triumphing at the Australian Open.
Per the WTA, Rybakina was the only player on the tour to surpass 400 aces last year, with a whopping 516 aces to her name. She continues to lead the aces leaderboard this year, with 75 service winners.
In addition, Rybakina has an impressive first-serve points percentage of 74.5%, the highest of anyone with 10+ matches played. She led the WTA Tour in this statistic in 2025 as well, recording a first serve points percentage of 74.6%.
Rybakina also led the WTA in service games won percentage last year (of all players with 10+ matches played), with 82.5%. That number has gone up this year to 84.8%.
Her break points converted percentage of 55.9% is also only bettered by Elina Svitolina (58.3%), and Clara Tauson (56.1%) among the players currently ranked in the top 20.
