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Elena Rybakina's 2023 US Open campaign came to a grinding halt as the World No. 4 was defeated by Sorana Cirstea in the third round of the Grand Slam Major.
It was a see-saw match for the Kazakh who had a shaky start and lost the first set. She pushed back and fought her way into the match winning a tie-break in the second set.
Rybakina levelled Cirstea's early break in the decider set. However, Cirstea broke back and gave little room to Rybakina as she converted her first match point into a win. The World No. 30 staged one of the biggest upsets of the tournament as she came out on top, 3-6, 7-6, 4-6.
During the match, Elena Rybakina's coach Stefano Vukov constantly relayed instructions to the fourth seed including during Cirstea's serve. Tennis fans took to Twitter to express their disapproval of Vukov's antics with some of them criticizing his behaviour.
Tennis journalist Jose Morgado also echoed the same sentiment to which several tennis fans responded in agreement.
Vukov had come under fire for the same reasons at this year's Australian Open where Rybakina was a finalist.
The former player and coach's approach was also questioned by tennis fans including Pam Shiver. In response to all the criticism, Rybakina has always been supportive of Vukov.
Here are a few more reactions to Vukov's latest antics:
Sorana Cirstea stuns Elena Rybakina, to clash with Belinda Bencic in R4 of the US Open
Elena Rybakina became the highest seed to fall out of the 2023 US Open with a third round exit. She was defeated by Sorana Cirstea, who will now clash with Belinda Bencic in the fourth round of the final Grand Slam of the year.
The Romanian will come into the match with straight-set victories over Kayla Day and Anna Kalinskaya in the first and second round, respectively. This is the deepest run that the 33-year-old has made in the US Open so far. She reached as far as the third round in 2009, 2019 and 2020.
Fifteenth seed Belinda Bencic also managed straight-set victories in her first and second rounds against Kamilla Rakhimova and Yuriko Miyazaki respectively. She dropped a set in her third round clash with Zhu Lin, 7-6, 2-6, 6-3. The World No. 13 has already bettered her 2022 third round exit.
Cirstea leads the duo 2-1 in terms of head-to-head record. They last met on-court in the second round of the 2022 US Open where Bencic came out on top.
