Madrid Open: Qinwen Zheng vs. Elena Rybakina - prediction, head-to-head, tournament so far

Fresh disconnected titanic comeback wins astatine the Madrid Open, Qinwen Zheng and Elena Rybakina volition fastener horns successful the 3rd circular for a spot successful circular 4 of the WTA 1000 tournament.

Neither subordinate was wholly satisfied with her show successful Friday’s second-round victory, though some were relieved to person progressed and acceptable up what is arguably the standout lucifer of the adjacent circular successful the women’s draw.

Match preview

Eleven months aft her erstwhile lucifer connected clay, Zheng was backmost connected the ungraded successful Madrid connected Friday arsenic the Olympic golden medallist took connected erstwhile Grand Slam champion Sofia Kenin.

The Chinese superstar was defeated by Aryna Sabalenka successful Paris past twelvemonth successful consecutive sets and mislaid the opener to Kenin, winning lone 1 game, which suggested an aboriginal exit was connected the cards.

However, the erstwhile satellite No. 4, who has slipped down the rankings owed to injury, refocused successful acceptable 2 and fought backmost from a interruption down successful the decider to assertion a 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory.

Friday’s triumph marked the 23-year-old’s archetypal connected the aboveground successful 2026 and 5th overall, improving her to 5-3 this season, and she chases a sixth astatine the disbursal of Rybakina successful the 3rd round.

Despite her clay-court expertise, Zheng has ne'er made it beyond the 3rd circular successful Madrid, and the five-time WTA champion has present matched her 2023 show successful the Spanish capital.

Having claimed lone her second-ever triumph astatine this WTA 1000 event, the satellite No. 36 present bids to instrumentality down an in-form subordinate whose winning streak faced a scare connected Friday.

Rybakina intelligibly faced challenges acclimatising to conditions successful the Spanish superior lone days aft claiming her 2nd rubric of 2026 astatine the WTA 500 tourney successful Stuttgart.

Elena Gabriela Ruse undeniably made the satellite No. 2’s instrumentality to outdoor clay courts awkward, and the match, lasting 2 hours and 28 minutes, astatine times looked to beryllium getting distant from the Kazakhstani star.

Not helped by a staggeringly precocious 58 unforced errors and the inconsistency of her archetypal serve, the 2nd effect needed to excavation heavy to flooded her Romanian hostile and debar her earliest exit astatine immoderate WTA 1000 lawsuit successful 2026.

Despite the above-mentioned errors, it was noticeable that the satellite No. 2’s mistakes reduced successful sets 2 and 3 — 18 and 12, respectively — aft 24 successful the opening set, portion her first-set first-serve percent of 41% improved to 58% and 55%.

Now connected a five-match winning streak pursuing her 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 victory, Rybakina, whose lone defeats connected the circuit since the commencement of March person been against Aryna Sabalenka, volition purpose to scope the 4th circular successful Madrid, wherever she is simply a erstwhile semi-finalist, to amended her 26-5 grounds for the season.

Tournament truthful far

Qinwen Zheng:

First round: Bye

Second round: vs. Sofia Kenin 1-6 6-3 6-3

Elena Rybakina:

First round: Bye

Second round: vs. Elena-Gabriela Ruse 4-6 6-3 7-5

Head To Head

Doha (2026) – Round of 16: Rybakina 4-6 6-2 7-5)

WTA Finals (2024) – Round Robin: Zheng 7-6(4) 3-6 6-1)

China Open (2023) – Round of 64: Rybakina 6-1 6-2)

Wimbledon (2022) – Third round: Rybakina 7-6(4) 7-5)

Although Rybakina leads Zheng 3-1 successful their head-to-head, Sunday’s lucifer volition people their archetypal connected clay.

Rybakina got the amended of the Chinese prima successful their archetypal gathering astatine Wimbledon successful 2022 en way to her maiden Grand Slam triumph and took attraction of concern successful their adjacent brushwood the pursuing twelvemonth successful Beijing, dropping conscionable 3 games to triumph 6-1, 6-2.

While Zheng past halved the shortage by getting the amended of the 26-year-old successful the 2024 WTA Finals, Rybakina extended her pb aft a hard-fought comeback occurrence successful Doha 2 months ago.

We say: Rybakina to triumph successful 3 sets

Apart from that Beijing brushwood successful 2023, each match-up betwixt the 2 players has been a hard-fought contest, and Sunday should not beryllium immoderate different.

Rybakina, who has had acold much competitory clay-court signifier this year, should assertion a 4th triumph implicit the Chinese subordinate to widen her five-match winning streak.