Elena Rybakina shocked by Anna Blinkova at the Australian Open after longest ever women’s Grand Slam tie-break

Elena Rybakina suffered her earliest Grand Slam defeat since the 2022 US Open as Anna Blinkova pulled off the biggest win of her career following a record-breaking deciding set tie-break at the Australian Open.

Kazakhstan’s third seed lost 6-4 4-6 7-6(20) to the Russian, who is down at 57th in the world rankings, to produce one of the biggest shocks of the tournament so far.

The 42-point tie-break in the final set was the longest ever women’s singles tie break played at a Grand Slam.

Blinkova had only previously beaten top 10 players twice, against the then world No. 8 Belinda Bencic in 2020 and at last year’s French Open, when she was victorious against Caroline Garcia – who was fifth at the time.