Kyrgios to face Sabalenka in Dubai exhibition<\/a><\/p>\nNick Kyrgios and Aryna Sabalenka are to star in the latest man-vs-woman tennis match, with Kyrgios following several notable Australians in doing so.<\/p>\n
“It’s going to be another powerful match,” Sabalenka said as she looked ahead to her ninth final of the season.<\/p>\n
“I feel like today was great preparation for Elena and I’m looking forward to leaving everything I have [on court] in the last match of the season and fight for this beautiful trophy.”<\/p>\n
After gruelling early exchanges with Anisimova, the rematch of September’s US Open final swung in favour of Sabalenka when she surged to a 5-3 lead in the first set.<\/p>\n
She turned up the aggression from the baseline to take the opening set in an hour.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka found herself on the back foot in the second set when Anisimova reeled off the opening four games and it was a matter of time until the match went into a decider.<\/p>\n
A flurry of aces saw Sabalenka hold for 3-3 in the third set and she grabbed the decisive break in the next game with a huge backhand winner.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka survived some nervous moments at the end, before seeing off her American opponent.<\/p>\n
In the earlier semifinal, Pegula secured the opening set thanks to Rybakina’s 25th unforced error.<\/p>\n
But there was a sudden shift in momentum in the next set as Pegula found herself 1-4 behind and in danger of being dragged the distance.<\/p>\n
Pegula recovered her rhythm and pushed hard in her bid to draw level in the set, but Rybakina responded strongly in the 10th game to force a decider.<\/p>\n
They swapped breaks again in a tight battle, before a forehand into the net from Pegula at the end of the eighth game handed the advantage back to Rybakina.<\/p>\n
Rybakina held in the next game to sealed the victory.<\/p>\n
“It was such a tough battle \u2026 I’m glad I managed to find my way in the second and win it in a three-set battle,” Rybakina said.<\/p>\n
“My serve helped me when I needed it. I was trying to stay focused on each point when we had some tough rallies.<\/p>\n
“In the end I managed to push myself a bit more.”<\/p>\n
Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World number one Aryna Sabalenka has booked a WTA Finals title showdown with Elena Rybakina, with both players…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[3228,4909,64,63,20336,156985,14640,85,747,1751,749,123804],"class_list":["post-269781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-amanda-anisimova","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-elena-rybakina","tag-jess-pegula","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-us-open","tag-wimbledon","tag-wta-finals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269781","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=269781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}