No.4 seed Elena Rybakina booked her place in her second Roland Garros quarterfinal with a 6-4, 6-3 defeat of No.15 seed Elina Svitolina in 69 minutes. She will face No.12 seed Jasmine Paolini, who reached the last eight of a Grand Slam for the first time with a 4-6, 6-0, 6-1 win over Elina Avanesyan.

Rybakina, who reached the first Grand Slam quarterfinal of her career at Roland Garros 2021, advances to the last eight of a major for the fifth time overall, and for the first time since Wimbledon last year. The Kazakhstani player has not dropped a set in the tournament so far.

The result moves Rybakina into a tour-leading ninth quarterfinal of 2024. She has won three Hologic WTA Tour titles so far this season, in Brisbane, Abu Dhabi and Stuttgart, and her overall record is now 34-5.

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The last time the pair had met was in the bronze medal play-off at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021, with Svitolina edging that match 1-6, 7-6(5), 6-4. The Ukrainian had also won their only previous clay-court encounter 6-4, 1-6, 6-2 in the 2020 Strasbourg final. Rybakina, who previously defeated Svitolina at Eastbourne 2021, levels their head-to-head at two wins apiece.

How the match was won: Both sets followed similar trajectories: Rybakina leapt out to an early lead, Svitolina pegged her back but Rybakina pulled away again to close.

As usual, Rybakina's ball-striking off the ground and strong serve were the bedrock of her win: she tallied 26 winners, including five aces. But the variety she has incorporated into her game enabled her to find an extra gear when she needed it. Early on, Rybakina repeatedly deployed the drop shot, testing Svitolina's movement to successful effect.

In the second, the former Wimbledon champion pressed home her advantage at net, where she won 12 out of 18 points overall.

"I'm trying to come to the net more often," she said afterwards. "Of course I think that's the one thing if I improve it's going to be easier maybe to close some rallies. But it depends, of course, on the score, if you're confident to do that or not. But slowly I think I'm doing good to progress in that."

After breaking Svitolina in the first game, Rybakina relinquished her lead with a flurry of unforced errors. However, she regained the break with a booming backhand winner for 3-2, and saved the only further break point she faced in the set in similar style.

Rybakina made a dominant start to the second set, building a 4-1 double break lead. This time, Svitolina found her best shots of the match -- including a terrific backhand pass -- to get one of the breaks back, but was unable to reel Rybakina in any further.

Paolini notches another milestone: At the age of 28, Paolini is enjoying a career-best season. In 2023, she received a nomination for Most Improved Player in the year-end WTA Awards after breaking into the Top 30, and the Italian has built on that in style. In January, she reached the fourth round of a major for the first time at the Australian Open; she followed it with a maiden WTA 1000 trophy in Dubai in February.

A Grand Slam quarterfinal debut was on the line for both Paolini and Avanesyan, but it was the former who also had the pressure of being the favorite by ranking to win. For the first four games of the match, she struggled to impose herself, getting dragged into Avanesyan's favored style of looping topspin exchanges and leaking errors as a result.

Down 4-0, Paolini began stepping inside the court and unleashing her power earlier in rallies, a strategy that would prove to be a winning one. It wasn't enough to save the first set, which Avanesyan served out at the second opportunity, but Paolini was in total control over the next two. She fired 20 of her 29 total winners in the second and third sets, and ultimately won 16 of the last 19 games of the match.

"I was a little bit, let's say, outside of the match," said Paolini in her on-court interview. "So I tried to do one game, then two, three, to get back into the match. To have a better sensation on my racquet. I think it went well, and the second set I was already in the match."

Praised by Mats Wilander for the heart she showed in pulling off the comeback, the 5'4" Paolini laughed as she replied:

"It has to be big because I'm so small!"

Rybakina leads the head-to-head with Paolini 2-1, including a 6-3, 5-7, 6-3 victory in the Stuttgart quarterfinals in April. Paolini's win came via retirement in last year's Cincinnati third round.

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