Elena Rybakina vs Heather Watson Tips, Prediction & Live Stream - Rybakina to ease into Queens quarter-finals

Rybakina received an opening round bye as one of the top four seeds and will be targeting another prolific grass season over the coming month. The Kazakh is a former Wimbledon champion and has made the second week at the grass major in all of her previous appearances, holding a dominant 19-3 record at The Championships (86 per cent winning rate). After winning her first title of 2025 on the clay of Strasbourg just before Roland Garros, Rybakina will be aiming for more silverware this week on the famous lawns of Queens.

There was a time that Watson was a significant threat during this stage of the season, but the Brit has fallen outside of the top 150 and only claimed her first tour-level win of 2025 in her Queens opening round. Watson does have some match practice on grass after qualifying for the main draw, but Rybakina is simply the far superior player and has dominated better opponents on grass over the years - I'll back the fourth seed to cover here.

This will be the second career meeting between the pair, with Rybakina emerging a 6-3 4-6 6-4 winner in the semi-finals of Hobart back in 2020.

Rybakina arrives at Queens with a 26-10 record on the season, capturing her first title of 2025 in Strasbourg and remaining just outside the top 10 at No. 11 in the world.

Despite some off-court controversy surrounding her former coach, Rybakina has put together a solid year - and with barely any points to defend after Wimbledon, she will be hoping to finish 2025 back inside the top 10.

The 25-year-old was playing some of her best tennis of the season in Strasbourg and the first week of Roland Garros. Indeed, the former World No. 3 advanced to the fourth round of the French Open and was dominating four-time champion Iga Swiatek 6-1 2-0 before going down in three.

With her favourite part of the season coming up, Rybakina will be determined to maintain that level of tennis and once again make an impact on the lawns.

Watson comes into this clash with an even 11-11 record on the season, but all but one of those wins have come at ITF or WTA125 level.

The Brit, who has a career-high ranking of No. 38, has struggled for her best tennis over the last few years and isn't really a factor at tour-level anymore.

In saying that, if Watson is to start a climb back up the rankings, then it's going to start on grass - and she's already made a positive start to the short swing.

Indeed, the 33-year-old has won four of her five matches on grass so far, making the second round in Birmingham last week before qualifying for the Queen's Club main draw and taking the scalp of World No. 27 Yulia Putintseva 6-4 6-3.

Watson will now be aiming for her first WTA quarter-final in nearly two years and her biggest win by ranking since 2017.