Player of the week: Magdalena Rybarikova

After her breakthrough in 2008 season, climbing from #279 to #58 in the WTA ranking, 20 year-old Slovak Magdalena Rybarikova is keeping this season her good progression and last week she captured her first WTA title in Birmingham.


After defeating Amanmuradova and Scheepers in the 1st and 2nd round, 13th seed Rybarikova early faced a major challenge, as she was drawn to meet 1st seed Jie Zheng in the Last-16 round. After a very tight 1st set that Rybarikova took in the tiebreak by 12-10, the Slovak kept her good level to take the 2nd set and complete the upset. In the quarters Magdalena defeated upcoming Urszula Radwanska in straight sets and in the semis she had to comeback from a set down to overcome Sania Mirza. Then in the final Magdalena was facing another Chinese, 4th seed Na Li. And although it was the first WTA final for Rybarikova, she didn't feel nerves or pressure and played her best tennis from the very beggining to take the 1st set by a clear 6/0. The 2nd set was much closer but Rybarikova managed to take it in the tie-break.


With this result, Rybarikova breakes into the Top 50 reaching a career-high ranking at #44. We'll keep an eye on her in Wimbledon.