{"id":78214,"date":"2025-01-14T12:10:20","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T17:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=78214"},"modified":"2025-01-14T12:10:20","modified_gmt":"2025-01-14T17:10:20","slug":"rybakina-paolini-australian-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/01\/14\/rybakina-paolini-australian-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Rybakina and Paolini Show No Mercy As They Advance at Australian Open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina delivered a stern tennis lesson to 16-year-old Emerson Jones on Tuesday, advancing to the second round of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/category\/australian-open\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Australian Open<\/a> in a 6-1 6-1 win.<\/p>\n<p>The sixth-seeded Kazakh showcased her experience by skillfully working the Junior World #1 across all areas of the Margaret Court Arena, unleashing 26 winners and 11 aces to end the encounter in under an hour.<\/p>\n<p>At 5-1 down, Jones displayed a hint of her ability by creating three break points, but Rybakina countered by hitting four straight aces and a forehand winner to claim the first set.<\/p>\n<p>Rybakina will face <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2024\/08\/28\/american-teen-sensation-iva-jovic-bows-out-us-open\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">another teenager<\/a>, Iva Jovic, in the next round after the young American completed a 6-1 6-2 demolition job of Nuria Parrizas-Diaz&#8217;s on her Melbourne bow.<\/p>\n<h4>Paolini Masterclass<\/h4>\n<p>Jasmine Paolini, meanwhile, showcased her credentials for the Australian Open title, performing impressively in the first round on Tuesday. The 29-year-old Italian delivered a crushing &#8220;bagel&#8221; to Chinese qualifier Wei Sijia, who was debuting at a Grand Slam, finishing with a 6-0 6-4 scoreline.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, Paolini became the first Italian woman to advance to the last 16 at all four Grand Slams in the Open Era and clinched the title in Dubai, marking a breakthrough year that launched her into the top five. She also reached her first major finals at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, and the world number four is eager to secure a title in Melbourne.<\/p>\n<p>Paolini exploded out of the gate with a dominant first set, achieving an impressive 81 per cent success rate on her first serves against the struggling World #117.<\/p>\n<p><a  id=\"fSyTVRNeQaZjaW97QiqJWA\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2193827708\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'fSyTVRNeQaZjaW97QiqJWA',sig:'yLYLwj4T5nwf5dXM1QNFtYt2x1_wfqWnArC_4nT3Jq4=',w:'594px',h:'422px',items:'2193827708',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Wei managed to get on the scoreboard by winning the second set&#8217;s opening game. She gained confidence with several drop-shot winners and earned two early break points but could not convert them.<\/p>\n<p>Paolini sustained the pressure on her opponent and succeeded in breaking Wei again to take a 3-2 lead before closing out the match with a commanding victory in just 73 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Her next challenge will come on Thursday against either Mexico&#8217;s Renata Zarazua.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina delivered a stern tennis lesson to 16-year-old Emerson Jones on Tuesday, advancing to the second round of the Australian Open in a 6-1 6-1 win. The sixth-seeded Kazakh showcased her experience by skillfully working the Junior World #1 across all areas of the Margaret Court Arena, unleashing 26 winners and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4883,"featured_media":64119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2,4],"tags":[42694,16883,42712,42396,5319,15196,11115,58,41683],"class_list":["post-78214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australian-open","category-featured","category-wta","tag-2025-australian-open","tag-elene-rybakina","tag-emerson-jones","tag-iva-jovic","tag-jasmine-paolini","tag-nuria-parrizas-diaz","tag-renata-zarazua","tag-taylor-townsend","tag-wei-sijia"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4883"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78214"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78270,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78214\/revisions\/78270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}