{"id":267241,"date":"2025-11-06T20:09:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T20:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/267241\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T20:09:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T20:09:06","slug":"wta-finals-2025-aryna-sabalenka-and-jessica-pegula-qualify-for-semi-finals-in-riyadh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/267241\/","title":{"rendered":"WTA Finals 2025: Aryna Sabalenka and Jessica Pegula qualify for semi-finals in Riyadh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">French Open champion Gauff did not do too much wrong in the opening set but Sabalenka excels in tie-breaks, having won 22 of the 24 breakers she has played this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Gauff&#8217;s serve, which has been problematic in recent times, held up extremely well in the first set &#8211; with 72% of first serves in, 62% of first-serve points won and 70% of points won behind her second serve.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, she failed to serve out the opener at 5-4 up before her first double fault of the match gifted four-time major singles champion Sabalenka two set points in the tie-break.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On the other side of the net, Sabalenka demonstrated the full range of emotions as she twice battled back from a break down; frustration after several points lost, despair after sending a backhand volley wide during the tie-break and then celebration as she thrashed a powerful forehand winner to clinch it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sabalenka quickly moved 4-0 up in the second and, despite briefly giving back one of her two breaks of serve, she served out victory to stay on course for a first WTA Finals title.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sabalenka is into the semi-finals for a fourth successive year but has only reached the final once, losing to Caroline Garcia in 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French Open champion Gauff did not do too much wrong in the opening set but Sabalenka excels in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-267241","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\/267241","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=267241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}