The women's semifinals at the 2025 Cincinnati Open began on Sunday with a match featuring world #3 and defending Wimbledon champion Iga Swiatek of Poland taking on world #10 Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan.
This is the 4th meeting this year with Swiatek winning the prior 3 in Perth, Australia at the United Cup, the WTA1000 in Doha, Qatar, and at Roland Garros in Paris.
Rybakina arguably had the tougher path to the semifinals. After a 1st round bye, she had to beat Mexico's Renata Zarazua in the 2nd round, Elise Mertens of Belgium in the 3rd, American Madison Keys in the round of 16, and world #1 Aryna Sabalenka in the quarterfinal to set up this matchup with Swiatek.
Swiatek's path after the 1st round bye saw her defeat Russia's Anastasia Potapova in the 2nd round, Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine in the 3rd, Sorana Cirstea of Romania in the round of 16, and Anna Kaliskaya of Russia in the quarterfinal.
The first set saw both players playing conservatively as we had service holds for the first 6 games with several aces and unreturnable balls. It was at 3-3 though, that Rybakina would finally break through and break Swiatek's serve. It was a short lived victory though, as Swiatek would get the break back to even it at 4-4, then hold serve to go up 5-4. Rybakina would hold again to even it back up, but Swiatek would win the next 2 games and take the opening set.
The second set started with dominence by Swiatek as she quickly went up 4-1. Ryabkina would try to mount a comeback winning the next game, but would fall short while attempting to break Swiatek in her service game. Down 5-2 Rybakina would attempt to serve to stay in the match. She would quickly find herself down 15-40 facing double match point. She would fend off Swiatek holding serve. Swiatek would then have the opportunity to serve for the match, and she would close it out punching her ticket to her first final in Cincinnati.
Iga Swiatek defeats Elena Rybakina 7-5,6-3.
She awaits the winner of the Jasmine Paolini (Italy) vs Veronika Kudermetova semifinal being played later today.
After the match Iga Swiatek spoke with the media