{"id":258152,"date":"2025-11-02T19:15:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T19:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/258152\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T19:15:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T19:15:07","slug":"aryna-sabalenka-jessica-pegula-win-wta-finals-openers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/258152\/","title":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka, Jessica Pegula win WTA Finals openers"},"content":{"rendered":"

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> put on a dominant serving display in her opening match at the WTA Finals, producing 10 aces in a 6-3, 6-1 win over No. 8-ranked Jasmine Paolini<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka served four aces in the final game of the first set alone and overall put 82.7% of her first serves in play.<\/p>\n

The match, which was Sabalenka’s 500th at the WTA level, lasted 70 minutes.<\/p>\n

“I was focused, I was calm and it felt like everything was in control,” Sabalenka said.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Sabalenka was presented with a trophy for finishing the year at No. 1.<\/p>\n

“I’m super happy and super proud of the work that has been done and that things are working and I’m getting better and better every day,” she said. “And I just hope that we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing and hopefully we can stay there.”<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/p>\n

The season-ending tournament for the year’s top eight players starts with two four-woman groups of round-robin play. The top two finishers in each group advance to the semifinals.<\/p>\n

“I take this tournament as a regular tournament that I have to win five matches if I want to win the title,” Sabalenka said. “So I’m just trying to bring my best tennis and fight for every point.”<\/p>\n

In the same group, Jessica Pegula<\/a> beat defending champion Coco Gauff<\/a> 6-3, 6-7 (4), 6-2 in an all-American matchup.<\/p>\n

Gauff again struggled with her serve, hitting 12 double-faults — including one to hand the first set to Pegula, her former doubles partner.<\/p>\n

Before she ultimately pulled it out in the tiebreaker, Gauff twice failed to serve out the second set. On her second such chance, she hit three consecutive double-faults to let Pegula break her again and force a tiebreaker.<\/p>\n

Three weeks ago, Gauff beat Pegula in the final of the Wuhan Open in China.<\/p>\n

“Coco is a great champion, great competitor, good friend. So it’s always tough playing her,” Pegula said. “I don’t think there’s any secrets with this group of girls here.”<\/p>\n

Iga Swiatek<\/a> and Elena Rybakina<\/a> won their opening matches on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Also Saturday, Paolini and partner Sara Errani<\/a> won their opening doubles match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka put on a dominant serving display in her opening match at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-258152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}