Mumbai: Between the quiet sunset of the Big Three reign and the buzzing dawn of a young duopoly in men’s tennis, women’s tennis revelled in its own three-way rivalry at the top.
Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina gobbled up five straight Grand Slams between them through 2022 and 2023, and were ranked one, two and three, in that order, for a considerable period. Each brought their unique strengths, game style and distinct personality to this trilogy that stabilized the fickle world of women’s tennis and played out frequently at the business end of big tournaments.
Over the last couple of years, however, even as Sabalenka bulldozed her way to the No.1 crown while Swiatek still held the fort of consistency in Slams, Rybakina lost a bit of ground to the other two and steam in her own progress.
At this year’s hot and humid Australian Open, the 2022 Wimbledon champion has rekindled shades of her Slam-winning self and, with it, the spark of a riveting rivalry.
World No.5 Rybakina is back as a Grand Slam quarterfinalist for the first time since 2024, blazing past Elise Mertens 6-1, 6-3 in the fourth round on Monday. As if right on cue, a familiar foe awaits on Wednesday for a semi-final spot: Swiatek.
The Moscow-born Kazakh did not go beyond the fourth round across the four Slams in 2025. The barren run was unlike any of her previous three seasons, where Rybakina made at least one quarter-final in majors after winning Wimbledon in 2022 and giving Sabalenka a run for her money in the 2023 Australian Open final.
Something flipped late last year, post her fourth-round crash at the US Open. Rybakina won the WTA 500 Ningbo Open in October, and captured the WTA Finals in Riyadh in November going past Swiatek in the group stage and Sabalenka in the final.
From that season-ending event to this season-opening Slam, Rybakina has won 17 of her 18 matches. When she gets on this kind of a run, dishing out the kind of tennis she is known for, this soft-spoken player can quietly roll through deep into tournaments.
Among the best ball strikers in the women’s game with a serve that can sting, Rybakina has looked better with every passing round in Melbourne. On Monday, in a match where she felt the best so far among her four rounds, she cracked 32 winners off both wings and fired 10 aces.
Rybakina likes to dictate the game from her racquet. She has the third highest aces (24) and the fourth most second serve return points won (48) among the women in the tournament so far.
That’s exactly the playbook to get Swiatek off her cruise mode.
The world No.2 swatted aside Aussie qualifier Maddison Inglis 6-0, 6-3 on Monday and has looked in fine touch herself in the past week. The Pole though is known to get somewhat rattled by hard-hitting ball strikers who aren’t shy to go for broke (she is famously 0-6 in the win-loss against Jelena Ostapenko). And Rybakina is just that.
It reflects in their tight head-to-head record that Swiatek leads 6-5. In the five times they met in 2025, Swiatek won four contests. But Rybakina took their most recent encounter in Riyadh last month. In their only Slam meeting last year, Swiatek rallied to win in three sets in the French Open Round of 16. But in their only other Slam showdown before that, Rybakina blew away the then top seed of the 2023 Australian Open in straight sets.
Rybakina knows the template to defeat Swiatek, even carrying the tools to execute it.
“I know that I need to stay aggressive, and go for my shots,” said Rybakina. “When we played here (in 2023) it was also hot then, so the ball was flying… I think Iga (now), she is really moving so well. I will need to not only stay aggressive, but also change a little bit of the shots. Maybe some variety.”
Perhaps that muddled thinking could take her away from her best game, which has brought her back into a Slam quarter-final. Swiatek has been there and done that consistently for the last couple of years in Slams, and is bound to be ready to pounce.
“Her tennis, for sure, is great. So I need to be 100 percent ready and go for it,” she said of Rybakina. “And, use my experience and the knowledge from previous matches.”
