Elena Rybakina started her bid for a second Porsche Tennis Grand Prix title on Tuesday with a hard-fought three-set victory at the Porsche Arena in Stuttgart, surviving a strong opening set from local wild card Laura Siegemund to advance into the second round of the WTA 500 clay-court tournament.
The top seed came through 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-1 in a match that tested her resilience early on the indoor clay, with Siegemund — the 2017 Stuttgart champion playing in front of a supportive home crowd — taking the opening set before Rybakina steadied and eventually accelerated through the second-set tiebreak and a dominant final set to close out the win.
It was the Kazakhstani’s first clay-court match since the 2025 French Open, having sat out the hard-court swing from Indian Wells through Miami before making Stuttgart her seasonal curtain-raiser on dirt.
The context
Rybakina arrives in Stuttgart as the tournament’s top seed following the pre-tournament withdrawal of world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, who has not been replaced in terms of title threat by any single player in the field.
The 2024 Stuttgart champion is making her 2026 clay-court debut and enters as one of three Grand Slam champions in the draw alongside third seed Iga Swiatek and second seed Coco Gauff, both of whom are also playing their first clay matches of the season this week.
For Siegemund, Tuesday’s performance offered considerable encouragement despite the defeat. The German wild card, who claimed the Stuttgart title nine years ago, pushed the top seed deep into the match and will have earned strong home appreciation from a crowd that had filled the arena to watch the local representative’s opening effort.
Svitolina dominates
Fourth seed Elina Svitolina was considerably more straightforward in her first-round match, defeating Liudmila Samsonova 6-0, 6-4 to advance with efficiency. The Ukrainian, who has been one of the more consistent performers on tour through the early season, dropped just four games across the match and will enter the second round with considerable momentum on the surface.
What comes next
The first round continues on Wednesday, with third seed Swiatek making her long-awaited clay debut under new coach Francisco Roig when she faces Siegemund in a rematch dictated by the draw’s structure.
Swiatek hired Roig — a longtime figure in Rafael Nadal’s coaching setup — after splitting with Wim Fissette following a second-round loss at the Miami Open, and spent the intervening week training at Nadal’s namesake academy in Mallorca.
The four-time Roland Garros champion has yet to reach a semifinal in 2026, and Stuttgart, where she won back-to-back titles in 2022 and 2023, represents the first real indicator of whether her clay form has returned.
Defending champion Jelena Ostapenko faces sixth seed Mirra Andreeva in a headline first-round clash also scheduled for Wednesday.
