No. 12 seed Jasmine Paolini has reached her first Grand Slam semifinal after stunning fourth-seeded Elena Rybakina in the French Open quarterfinal.
Paolini, who won her first WTA 1000 title in Dubai earlier this year, missed out on a great chance to close out the match against Rybakina in two sets but remained calm and eventually sealed a 6-2 4-6 6-4 win.
After easily winning the first set, Paolini was three times up by a break in the second set. But Rybakina refused to quit and somehow ended up stealing the set and forcing a decider.
Considering Rybakina’s resume, many players would probably experience a major collapse after failing to close out the match against the 2022 Wimbledon champion in such a devastating way. But not Paolini, who didn’t panic.
And now, Paolini awaits the winner of the match between Aryna Sabalenka and Mirra Andreeva.
How Paolini beat Rybakina?
When the match started, it was Paolini who was pretty much dictating the play and controlling everything as the Italian broke Rybakina in the first and seventh games en route to easily winning the opener. Also, it should be noted that Paolini break points in all of Rybakina’s service games in the first set but just didn’t realize…
