Elena Rybakina’s Tokyo Open Run Ends After Injury Forces Quarterfinal Withdrawal
The world No. 1, Elena Rybakina, walked to the middle of the court in Tokyo on Friday, took a microphone and told the crowd in person that she would not be playing. The Kazakh pulled out of her Toray Pan Pacific Open quarterfinal against Leylah Fernandez with a neck injury, handing the Canadian a walkover into the semifinals.
The WTA revealed she was suffering from neck inflammation and pain, while she also didn’t sugarcoat how limited her options were.
“Thank you so much for coming today, but unfortunately I won’t be able to play,” she told the crowd. “I’ve been struggling a couple of days with a little injury and it’s difficult for me to come and play at my 100% since there’s also a very important tournament coming up.”
The final clause is the entire explanation. The season-ending WTA Finals begin in Indian Wells in a little over a week, and Rybakina is the defending champion.
She did not stop at the apology either. Rybakina used the rest of her time on the microphone to thank the event and its backer, marking Toray’s centenary and what she described as 41 years as the tournament’s main sponsor.
It’s a really nice sport, it’s a nice venue and I hope every time I come, but unfortunately this time I won’t be able to play,” she said, before signing off with a promise to return next year.
The newly crowned world No. 1 has been dealing with one issue after another for the past two months, and she knew the audience had turned up to see her play on the court. Last year as well, after reaching the semifinal, she gave a walkover to Linda Noskova to prioritize recovery for the WTA Finals.
The top seed had routed Yulia Putintseva 6-2, 6-3 in the round of 16 on Thursday, in a 70-minute affair where she never lost her serve, which even sealed her year-end No. 1 ranking. The quarterfinal was also a rematch she would have fancied.
Rybakina beat Fernandez 6-2, 6-2 in the Ningbo final only last week, the fewest games the Canadian has managed against her, and she leads their head-to-head 4-2 with the last three meetings in her favor. Instead, Fernandez advances to the semifinal to face Kamila Rakhimova without hitting a ball, and Rybakina heads to California with a body that has been talking back for a while.
Why did Rybakina have little choice?
The WTA Finals run from November 8 to 15 at Indian Wells, and Rybakina was the first singles player to qualify this year, her fourth straight appearance at the event. She’s the defending champion from Riyadh, and it’s the fourth consecutive time she will be finishing in the top five. Carrying a neck problem through two-three matches of best of three in Tokyo was never a trade worth making in front of defending the title in Indian Wells.
Rybakina is 53-14 for the season with four titles, more than anyone else on tour, starting with the Australian Open in January and running through Stuttgart, the US Open and Ningbo. She also reached finals at Indian Wells and in Toronto, losing to Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek respectively. The US Open sealed her dominance, where she beat Sabalenka in three sets to take a third different major and the No. 1 ranking that Sabalenka had held for 99 weeks.
The physical bill has been mounting since the start of the year, though. She played right from Brisbane to the Australian Open, the Middle Eastern swing, and then the Sunshine Double; not many players went through the whole stretch.
In the second half of the season, Rybakina retired against Swiatek in Cincinnati in August with a foot problem, then withdrew from the Billie Jean King Cup Finals with an Achilles injury. She was reported to have played the closing rounds in New York on painkillers.
A combination of that ankle issue and allergies kept her out of Wuhan in September. Tokyo now adds a neck to the list, and it is the third time in three months that a tournament has lost her mid-event or before a match.
She was not even the only one to go in Tokyo this week. The WTA 500 event was already stripped of its second seed, Maja Chwalinska, before the tournament even began, alongside world No. 20 Belinda Bencic due to injuries. The home star and four-time Grand Slam champion, Naomi Osaka, also exited in the round of 16 at the hands of wild card Mia Pohankova, which has thinned the draw further.
The only thing that matters to Rybakina right now is the eight-player pack in the desert and whether a week of rest is enough to let her defend the biggest title remaining.
