Monday's opening round of the 2022 WTA Cincinnati Open will feature Egypt's Mayar Sherif, who is ranked 60th in the world, taking on world number 27 Elena Rybakina.
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The Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina should have given a slightly stronger performance, but it’s clear that she hasn’t found her flow after her run of victories. She defeated Daria Kasatkina 6-2, 6-0 after entering the San Jose Open as the favourite. She won the opening set there but appeared lost in the following two. Later, she attributed that defeat to her lack of planning. She demonstrated that she was willing to fight, though, by forcing Marie Bouzkova and Cori Gauff into three sets in the two matches that came after at the Canadian Open. One she won, the other she dropped. Now, as she gets ready for the start of the US Open in two weeks, Rybakina will take on a competitor rated significantly lower than her and who has only ever won one career match in a WTA 1000 competition.
Mayar Sherif has never been a great player on a hard court, and this year has been no different for the Egyptian. She has participated in 10 matches on it in 2022, and she has only earned one victory—a victory in Monterrey over Seone Mendez, who is rated 262nd. Sherif has only triumphed on hard courts in three other sets. Even if she has already won a title this year, it was on the clay courts of Karlsruhe, and it hasn’t yet helped her confidence on hard courts. Donna Vekic destroyed her 6-4, 6-1 in the opening round of the Washington Open, thus she decided not to compete in Toronto. Can she compete with the Wimbledon champion here?
Elena Rybakina and Mayar Sherif are scheduled to face one another in the Opening round of the 2022 Cincinnati Open on Monday, August 15. The tournament is scheduled to run from August 14 till August 21.
The 2022 Cincinnati Open will see six rounds of action excluding the qualifiers. These include the round of 64, round of 32, round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals and final for both men’s and women’s. The tournament is scheduled to commence on August 14 and conclude on August 21 this year.
| Competition Stage | Date |
| Round of 64 | August 14 , 16 |
| Round of 32 | August 16 , 17 |
| Round of 16 | August 18 |
| Quarter-finals | August 19 |
| Semi-finals | August 20 |
| Finals | August 21 |
| Player | Seed |
| Iga Swiatek | 1 |
| Anett Kontaveit | 2 |
| Paula Badosa | 3 |
| Maria Sakkari | 4 |
| Ons Jabeur | 5 |
| Aryna Sabalenka | 6 |
| Jessica Pegula | 7 |
| Garbine Muguruza | 8 |
| Country | Where to watch |
| Australia | beIN Sports |
| Canada | TSN/Sportsnet/TVA Sports |
| India | Voot/Sports18 |
| UK | Amazon Prime Video |
| US | Tennis Channel |
