What Elena Rybakina said before retiring at Dubai Championships as reason revealed
Elena Rybakina was the top seed and favourite to win the 2026 Dubai Championships, but she is the latest star to withdraw the event.
In her third round match against Antonia Ruzic, Rybakina retired after she was broken in the first game of the third set, with the score 5-7, 6-4, 1-0 in her Croatian opponent’s favour.
The match was a struggle from the start for Rybakina, who lost her serve in the opening game. She twice battled back from a break down to win the opening set after she hit five double faults and saved seven of the nine break points she faced.
Ruzic, the world No 67, secured the only break of the second set and broke Rybakina for the fourth time in the match at the start of the third set.
Rybakina then called for the physio, and the world No 3 was heard saying she was suffering from nausea and pain in her legs before revealing she had decided not to continue.
Rybakina: “I have pain in the legs… [and] just sick, like nausea.”
Physio: “You haven’t had anything [to eat] this morning?”
Rybakina: “No, I ate, but in the morning… it was just a heavy head, I didn’t sleep well from yesterday. So I’m going to stop.”
Physio: “Do you want us to do any assessment?”
Rybakina: “No, because I know what it is, it’s just really tiredness and pain in the legs. So I don’t see the reason to continue.”
Physio: “That’s absolutely fine.”
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Ruzic, who is competing as a lucky loser after she was beaten in qualifying, will play world No 9 Elina Svitolina in the quarter-finals.
Rybakina is the fifth player to pull out of the Dubai Championships mid-match, while three other players have given walkovers.
There were also 11 players, including Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek, who withdrew before the draw was made, and a further five who pulled out after the draw but before their first match.
Rybakina was playing her fourth tournament of the 2026 season and second in as many weeks after she reached the quarter-finals at the Qatar Open last week.
The Kazakh won the Australian Open at the end of January after reaching the quarter-finals of the WTA 500 in Brisbane in her first event of the year.
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