Australian Open: Blinkova ousts Rybakina in marathon deciding tiebreak

Anna Blinkova edged out third seed Elena Rybakina 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (20) in an extraordinary encounter to reach the third round of the Australian Open.

Blinkova finally won the match on her eleventh match point, having saved six herself and served twice for the match in the third set.

Rybakina, runner-up at Melbourne Park last year, would not let Blinkova over the line in a truly captivating final set and match tiebreak.

It was the longest tie-break in a women’s singles match in Grand Slam history with a scarcely believable 42 points played.

The Kazakh broke twice as Blinkova served for the match, having been broken back herself each time the scores were levelled, to take the match into a deciding ten-point tiebreak.

From there, the match took seemingly endless swings of momentum as both players fended off match points with last-gasp tennis.

Finally, after 2 hours and 26 minutes of an incredible contest, Blinkova sealed the win on her eleventh match point by winning the deciding tiebreak 22-20.

“Thank you so much to the crowds for encouraging me and coming. It gave me so much energy to fight in the end,” Blinkova said after the win.

“There were moments I enjoyed – and other moments. It was super tough. And I tried to today focus on every point. I had so many match points.

“I tried to be aggressive at these moments but my hands were shaking, and my legs too.

“I tried to be calm as hard as I could. Super happy to win in the end.”

Blinkova, ranked No 57, will play Italian Jasmine Paolini, the No 26 seed, next.

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Melbourne (Grand Slam), other second-round results (Melbourne Park, hard, USD 58.910.000, most recent results first):

• Clara Tauson vs. Victoria Azarenka
• Jelena Ostapenko vs. Ajla Tomljanovic: thursday
• Dayana Yastremska (Q) beat Varvara Gracheva: 6-3, 6-2
• Viktorija Golubic beat Katerina Siniakova: 6-3, 2-6, 6-4
• Yafan Wang beat Emma Raducanu: 6-4, 4-6, 6-4
• Elina Svitolina (19) beat Viktoriya Tomova: 6-1, 6-3
• Emma Navarro (27) beat Elisabetta Cocciaretto: 4-6, 6-3, 6-3
• Clara Burel beat Jessica Pegula (5): 6-4, 6-2
• Qinwen Zheng (12) beat Katie Boulter: 6-3, 6-3
• Sloane Stephens beat Daria Kasatkina (14): 4-6, 6-3, 6-3
• Jasmine Paolini beat Tatjana Maria: 6-2, 6-3
• Oceane Dodin beat Martina Trevisan: 6-4, 6-4
• Iga Swiatek (1) beat Danielle Collins: 6-4, 3-6, 6-4
• Anna Kalinskaya beat Arantxa Rus: 6-1, 7-5
• Linda Noskova beat Mccartney Kessler (WC): 6-3, 1-6, 6-4
• Elina Avanesyan beat Maria Sakkari (8): 6-4, 6-4
• Marta Kostyuk beat Elise Mertens (25): 5-7, 6-1, 7-6 (6)
• Lesia Tsurenko (28) beat Rebeka Masarova: 6-3, 6-4
• Aryna Sabalenka (2) beat Brenda Fruhvirtova (Q): 6-3, 6-2
• Paula Badosa beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova: 6-2, 6-3
• Magdalena Frech beat Caroline Garcia (16): 6-4, 7-6 (2)
• Anastasia Zakharova (Q) beat Kaja Juvan: 6-1, 6-1
• Beatriz Haddad Maia (10) beat Alina Korneeva (Q): 6-1, 6-2
• Amanda Anisimova beat Nadia Podoroska: 6-2, 6-3
• Diane Parry beat Kamilla Rakhimova: 7-5, 6-2
• Coco Gauff (4) beat Caroline Dolehide: 7-6 (2), 6-2
• Barbora Krejcikova (9) beat Tamara Korpatsch: 6-2, 6-2
• Alycia Parks beat Leylah Fernandez (32): 7-5, 6-4
• Storm Hunter (Q) beat Laura Siegemund: 6-4, 3-6, 6-3
• Mirra Andreeva beat Ons Jabeur (6): 6-0, 6-2
• Maria Timofeeva (Q) beat Caroline Wozniacki (WC): 1-6, 6-4, 6-1