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Pliskova served for the opening set at 5-3 but the Czech was
unable to finish the job as Rybakina battled back to force a
tiebreak.
Pliskova issued one of her six double faults in the match on set
point in the tibreaker and Rybakina cruised from there, taking
the second set behind her powerful groundstrokes and booming
serve.
Next up for Rybakina is a meeting with American Jessica Pegula,
who won their only previous meeting at the Miami Open this year.
The WTA Finals will be contested by the game's top eight
players, with Iga Swiatek, Ons Jabeur and Pegula having locked
up the first three spots.
Rybakina can book her spot by winning the title in Mexico. The
Finals kick off on Oct. 31 in Fort Worth, Texas.
Canadian Bianca Andreescu rallied to beat Petra Kvitova 3-6 6-2
6-0 and will meet either Rybakina or Pegula in the third round.
After a strong start, Kvitova's serve began to betray her and
she issued eight double faults and was broken for an eighth time
in the final game of the contest to end her season.
Maria Sakkari also progressed to the third round on Tuesday,
ending a three-match losing run with a 6-4 6-4 victory over
Ukraine's Marta Kostyuk.
The pair traded two breaks apiece before the Greek won three
straight games to take the opening set.
Fourth seed Sakkari then broke again to take a 5-4 lead in the
second set, saving three break points in the following game and
holding serve to close out the win.
Sakkari, who received a bye in the first round, will next play
the winner of the match between Danielle Collins and Magdalena
Frech.
Earlier in the day, former Wimbledon finalist Eugenie Bouchard
beat American qualifier Kayla Day 7-5 6-3 to set up a second
round clash with 12th seed Jelena Ostapenko.
The victory by the Canadian wildcard was her first at a WTA 1000
level event since Dubai in 2019. The 28-year-old, whose career
has been plagued by injury, was forced to retire midway through
her match at the Transylvania Open last week with a hip injury.
Americans Madison Keys and Danielle Collins, who are also in the
running for the WTA finals, both moved on to the second round on
Tuesday, along with Russia's Anna Kalinskaya, Croatia's Donna
Vekic, Italy's Martina Trevisan and Czech Marie Bouzkova.
(Reporting by Rory Carroll in Los Angeles, additional reporting
by Aadi Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Peter
Rutherford)
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