WTA Finals live: Rybakina to face Pegula in last four before Sabalenka vs Anisimova

Pegula’s easy power and low returns are putting Rybakina on the back foot. Down 30-40 Rybakina fights for deuce but more wild errors destroy her; She cuts into the net and it’s her third consecutive break of serve.

Now much more confident than Pegula, Rybakina is having difficulty finding any rhythm on her groundstrokes.

But Rybakina came to the net and made a beautiful volley to make the score 15-15.

A double fault at 15-30 opens the door… and with both players caught in the tape, Rybakina has a chance to break straight back.

An excellent cross-court forehand from Rybakina just kisses the line, and we’re back on level!

A blatant error from Rybakina and she’s 0-30 down.

The Kazakh goes for something different, pins Pegula wide before getting to the drop shot… She’s back in it, but a brilliant backhand by the American, at full stretch, does a cross-court fizz and Pegula gets a chance to break!

Fist pump from the American as she duly does, Rybakina doing long looping.

Pegula moves into a 40-15 lead, before Rybakina shows what she’s made of, a flat cross-court strike too much for the American.

Pegula set the trap and suddenly he was pulled to deuce. Not getting the first serve through at the moment… but Rybakina is not getting the required height and net.

However, a whiff of a cross-court forehand comes through and we’re at deuce!

Pegula manages to break out of the hold, but it was a worse first service game than she expected.

A quick hold for Rybakina to kick things off, including three aces.

Its winner will face the winner of Anisimova vs Sabalenka in the next match.

Seventh seeds Timea Babos and Luisa Stefani defeated Su-Wei Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko in straight sets 6-4, 7-6(5) to reach the women’s doubles final.

They will face the winners of tonight’s other semi-final between second seeds Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend and fourth seeds Elise Mertens and Veronika Kudermetova.

Elena Rybakina faces Jessica Pegula next time, not before 3pm GMT.

“I wasn’t thinking about how to get through it, I was thinking I had to win, I was trying to focus on tennis.” She mentions the infamous Roland-Garros final and her attempt to avenge it.

In the semi-finals, she will face Amanda Anisimova, with whom she has played in three major tournaments this year – French and US Open and Wimbledon.

“That’s really crazy,” she says. “She’s an incredible player, we have great battles, I’m very happy to see her fighting back, playing her best tennis. It’s always a pleasure to play against her.

“I think whenever I focus on myself, without getting too emotional and staying in the same frame, that’s what’s important for me.”

“I finally got a straight sets win for the first time in a few months, so that always feels really good! But no, I thought I served really well, just played solid today, was aggressive when I needed to be aggressive. There weren’t too many negative type notes today.

“I’m no math whiz, but I’m pretty sure we’re going to see more tennis today. So I guess it just depends on the matchup for the next guy I play with. I think we’ll be really happy today, for the rest of the day, maybe for most of the night, and then we’ll have to change strategies a little bit.”

Earlier, Jessica Pegula finally won in straight sets, defeating a depleted and ill Jasmine Paolini after eight consecutive three-set wins.

This alone was not enough to qualify, as her fate depended on Sabalenka defeating Gauff, but it was businesslike and efficient on the part of the American, who booked a meeting with resurgent Elena Rybakina.

Yesterday’s final proved to be somewhat of a classic – or at least, the first set of it was. Defending champion Coco Gauff put in a strong performance and proved too much for Aryna Sabalenka, taking a 4–2 lead and earning two break point chances to lead 5–2.

But from there Sabalenka came back, held serve and took the break, and Gauff took the set 5–3, leading to an eventual tie-break.

The world number one and top seed continued her stellar performance in the breakers to snatch the opening set and after Gauff’s resolve and serve broke, she managed to win the second set 7-6(5), 6-2.