Second seed Elena Rybakina suffered a third-round defeat at Wimbledon to 25th seed Elise Mertens. The 2022 champion lost 7-6(4), 6-1 in one hour and 36 minutes.
Rybakina cited serve issues as the main problem after the match.
“My serve didn’t work,” she said. “I made a lot of double faults, and my first-serve percentage was very low. Today, the serve simply didn’t work.”
She recorded six double faults and finished with a 42 percent first-serve rate. Rybakina also noted she had trained well recently but needed to analyze her results after early exits in Berlin and at Queen’s.
Mertens, who had lost seven of her previous eight matches against Rybakina, advanced to face Marie Bouzkova. The Belgian called the victory a significant moment on grass.