Serena Williams is out of the French Open.
The 23-time Grand Slam winner saw her bid for another major title end at the hands of Elena Rybakina.
The 21st seed got the better of her more experienced opponent in straight sets, 6-3, 7-6 in the fourth round at Roland Garros.
Williams was hopeful of making further progress to earn a record-equalling 24th Grand Slam, particularly given some big names dropped out early on at this year's tournament.
She was the only top-20 seed left in the bottom half of the draw - ranked as 7th seed - but 21-year-old Rybakina had other ideas.
Producing a good performance, the Kazakh player advanced to the quarter-finals.
Take a bow 👏
Elena Rybakina breaks Serena Williams five times in her 6-3, 7-5 upset to earn a spot in her first Slam final eight.#RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/T2NYVwHbuo— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) June 6, 2021
There she will meet Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who got the better of 15th seed Victoria Azarenka.
Having lost the first set 7-5, the Russian produced some superb tennis in the following sets to take the final two decisively, 6-3, 6-2.
Fourth seed Sofia Kenin is now the highest-ranked player left in the tournament.
The American goes up against Maria Sakkari of Greece in the last 16.
In the men's competition, second seed Daniil Medvedev set up a quarter-final tussle with Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Medvedev won in straight sets against Cristian Garin, while Tsitsipas also enjoyed a straightforward victory over Pablo Carreno Busta.
It was also confirmed today that Roger Federer was withdrawing from the tournament.
He cited the physical challenge of playing in the tournament as the main reason for his decision.
Federer was due to play Matteo Berrettini in the fourth round.
