Alina Charaeva upset top seed Elena Rybakina in the round of 64 at the WTA 1000 event in Beijing, winning 3-6, 6-4, 6-3. The hard-court match ended 2:1 in sets in Charaeva's favor. The victory sent her on in the draw at the tournament with a prize fund of $9.4 million.
Rybakina took the first set, then the turnaround
The start belonged to Rybakina, who won the first set 6-3. In the second, Charaeva leveled the match by taking it 6-4. She won the deciding set 6-3 and closed out the match in her favor. According to api.tennis, after losing the first set Charaeva won two sets in a row.
For Charaeva, this was already the second straight match in Beijing in which she had to come back after dropping the first set. In the round of 128, she beat Yuliia Starodubtseva 5-7, 7-5, 6-2. Before the Beijing tournament, she played in Seoul and lost to Anna Bondar in three sets: 4-6, 7-6(6), 6-7(5).
There is a huge ranking gap between the two players. According to rank.tennis, Rybakina is No. 1 with 9696 points, while Charaeva is 108th with 704 points. Before Beijing, Rybakina won the US Open final against Aryna Sabalenka 6-4, 5-7, 6-2, and in the semifinal she beat Coco Gauff: 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.