{"id":759375,"date":"2026-02-12T11:33:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T11:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/759375\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T11:33:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T11:33:13","slug":"mboko-bids-for-top-10-rybakina-for-no-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/759375\/","title":{"rendered":"Mboko bids for Top 10, Rybakina for No. 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The last eight are set at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open. As the first WTA 1000 event of 2026 heats up, a pair of significant PIF WTA Rankings milestones are in play for No. 2 seed Elena Rybakina and No. 10 seed Victoria Mboko &#8212; who face each other in the third quarterfinal of the day on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Doha:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wtatennis.com\/tournaments\/doha\/scores\" data-tracking=\"true\" data-tracking-event=\"click_track\" data-tracking-component=\"link click\" data-tracking-category=\"content\" data-tracking-type=\"news\" data-tracking-detail=\"Scores\" data-tracking-widget-type=\"Article Widget\" data-tracking-widget-name=\"Article Page Widget\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Scores<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wtatennis.com\/tournaments\/doha\/draws\" data-tracking=\"true\" data-tracking-event=\"click_track\" data-tracking-component=\"link click\" data-tracking-category=\"content\" data-tracking-type=\"news\" data-tracking-detail=\"Draws\" data-tracking-widget-type=\"Article Widget\" data-tracking-widget-name=\"Article Page Widget\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Draws<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wtatennis.com\/tournaments\/doha\/order-of-play\" data-tracking=\"true\" data-tracking-event=\"click_track\" data-tracking-component=\"link click\" data-tracking-category=\"content\" data-tracking-type=\"news\" data-tracking-detail=\"Order of play\" data-tracking-widget-type=\"Article Widget\" data-tracking-widget-name=\"Article Page Widget\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Order of play<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After capturing her second Grand Slam crown at the Australian Open, Rybakina is on a nine-match winning streak and has returned to her career high of No. 3 &#8212; a position she first held in June 2023. The Kazakhstani could go one place higher, displacing Iga Swiatek at No. 2, depending on their results in Doha.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If Swiatek loses her quarterfinal to Maria Sakkari, Rybakina will need to reach the final<\/li>\n<li>If Swiatek defeats Sakkari and reaches the semifinals, then Rybakina will need to win the title<\/li>\n<li>If Swiatek faces Rybakina in the Doha final on Saturday, the World No. 2 ranking will thus be on the line for both<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Rybakina&#8217;s quarterfinal challenger is also bidding for her own milestone this week. Mboko is at a career high of No. 13 after a successful Australian swing in which the 19-year-old reached her third career final in Adelaide, and made the fourth round of a major for the first time at the Australian Open. This week, she&#8217;s already notched her third career Top 10 win over Mirra Andreeva &#8212; and Mboko could join that elite group herself, depending on the following scenarios:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If Mboko reaches the Doha final, her Top 10 debut next week will be guaranteed regardless of other results<\/li>\n<li>If Mboko defeats Rybakina to reach the semifinals, she will make her Top 10 debut unless Karolina Muchova wins the title<\/li>\n<li>Mboko&#8217;s Top 10 debut could be guaranteed on Thursday if she defeats Rybakina and Muchova loses to Anna Kalinskaya in the quarterfinals<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Rybakina holds a 2-1 head-to-head lead over Mboko, with all three previous meetings coming last year. Rybakina won their first encounter in the Washington second round 6-3, 7-5, and reprised the result 6-3, 7-6(4) in the Tokyo quarterfinals. In between, Mboko saved one match point en route to a 1-6, 7-5, 7-6(4) triumph in the Montreal semifinals.<\/p>\n<p>The only quarterfinal on Thursday with no ranking implications for Rybakina or Mboko is the first of the day, which sees two-time finalist Jelena Ostapenko face lucky loser Elisabetta Cocciaretto.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last eight are set at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open. As the first WTA 1000 event of 2026&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":759376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79,1068,661,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-759375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-text","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116057447294451348","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=759375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/759376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}