Rybakina reaches Madrid Open last 16, Jabeur meets Ostapenko

No.4 seed Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan reached the Madrid Open Round of 16 with a 6-1, 6-4 win over Egypt's Mayar Sherif on Sunday.

Sherif, who is ranked No. 72, secured only one game in the opening set after Rybakina went 5-0 up, although she managed to put up strong resistance in the second game. Sherif held serve in the second set opener and broke for the only time in the match to lead 2-1, before the fourth seed went ahead again 4-3 and took her 14th consecutive WTA win on clay, which made her only the 4th player to do so after Serena Williams, Simona Halep, and Iga Swiatek.

Rybakina has won three titles this season, the most among WTA players. Contending for a fourth, she is among the Top 5 players who remain in draw including Poland's Swiatek and American Coco Gauff, both above her in rankings, while they await Belarusian 2nd seed Aryna Sabalenka who will take on American Robin Montgomery later on Sunday.

In other fixtures earlier, Top 10 players Ons Jabeur of Tunisisa, Jelena Ostapenko of Lativa, and Maria Sakkari of Greece all reached the round of 16, among whom Jabeaur, a champion in Madrid in 2022, went through the toughest test.

The eighth seed had to come back in the first and third set in a total of 2 hours and 24 minutes to claim her first back-to-back victory of the year against Canada's Leylah Fernandez 7-5, 2-6, 6-4.

Jabeur rallied back from 3-0 down in the opener and 4-2 in the decider, while Fernandez, the 2021 U.S. Open runner-up, dominated the second set in which Jabeur hit only one winner. Jabeur will meet Ostapenko for the first Top 10 showdown in Madrid, with the two level on 2-2 in their head-to-head record.