New mom Belinda Bencic upsets Elena Rybakina in Abu Dhabi

Belinda Bencic scored the biggest win of her comeback from maternity leave, upsetting Elena Rybakina, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 to reach the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open final.

The 2023 champion is into her first WTA final since giving birth to a daughter last spring, rallying from a set down to dethrone the defending champion in two hours and six minutes on Center Court.

As Bencic was unable to defend her Abu Dhabi title last year, the former world No. 4 remains undefeated at the WTA 500 tournament, taking an eight-match winning streak into the championship match against American Ashlyn Krueger, who defeated Linda Noskova in straight sets earlier on Friday.

But first the Swiss star had to get past Rybakina, the top seed and former world No. 3. The two split their previous two encounters, both occurring in 2021: Bencic won their match at the Tokyo Olympic Games en route to winning the gold medal.

Bencic arrived in Abu Dhabi with strong momentum after a successful first major outing since maternity leaving, upsetting Jelena Ostapenko to reach the fourth round, where she pushed Coco Gauff to three sets.

In Abu Dhabi, she reached the semifinals without dropping a set, winning a 6-0, 6-0 stunner over Veronika Kudermetova in the second round and defeating former Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova in the quarterfinals.

Where Bencic eased into the semifinals, Rybakina has been made to battle throughout the week, winning three-set matches against Katie Volynets and former world No. 2 Ons Jabeur, who forced the Russian-born Kazakh to a third-set tiebreaker.

Rybakina appeared to have the upper hand on Bencic early on, hitting through the latter’s counterpunching to take the first set behind a single break of serve.

The second set also came down to a lone service break, but this time it was Bencic with the advantage, racing out to a 3-0 lead and, despite a brief interruption from Bencic’s cell phone, holding on to force a decider. Bencic emerged from an exchange of breaks to put herself in a winning position, breaking Rybakina for a third time to find herself serving for the match.

A brief controversy ensued when Rybakina expected a replay of a point that instead handed Bencic two match points. Rybakina channeled the frustration into saving both match points and overpowered Bencic into a break point, which she converted with a forehand winner.

Bencic snapped a run of seven straight points against her but Rybakina narrowed the gap to a single break between them. Opening the tenth game with a forehand winner of her own, Bencic calmly earned three more match points on serve. Rybakina saved one with a backhand into the open court, but Bencic outrallied Rybakina on the second, converting her fourth match point to edge over the finish line in three sets.