Rybakina missed three match points on Pegula’s serve and then was broken twice while serving for the match.<\/p>\n
In the tiebreaker, Pegula had two set points but wasn’t able to convert, and Rybakina finally clinched the win 29 minutes after her first match point.<\/p>\n
Editor’s Picks 1 Related<\/p>\n “Really, really stressful,” Rybakina said, saying she had flashbacks from the 2024 Australian Open when she lost the longest women’s tiebreaker ever at a Grand Slam to Anna Blinkova<\/a> 22-20 in a three-set defeat.<\/p>\n “I’m proud no matter the situation. It got very tight. I stayed there,” Rybakina said of the win over Pegula. “I was fighting for each point.”<\/p>\n For Pegula, it became a matter of swing or miss out.<\/p>\n “Sometimes when you’re on the brink of losing everything, you get a little clarity because you’re kind of just like, ‘Screw it, I’m just going to try and stay in this,'” she said. “I played a couple of really good points to save the match points, and you know, she missed a couple short balls … a couple free points to take some pressure off.”<\/p>\n Rybakina will face top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> for the title. Sabalenka overpowered Elina Svitolina<\/a> 6-2, 6-3 to move within one victory of a third Australian Open title in four years.<\/p>\n Sabalenka’s first Australian Open title was a comeback victory over Rybakina, with the Belarusian prevailing 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.<\/p>\n “It was a great battle,” Rybakina said of the 2023 final. “In the end, she played a bit better and it was well deserved. I want to enjoy the final, and hopefully I can serve better than today.”<\/p>\n She said she learned a lot from that match. Rybakina is also coming off a win over Sabalenka in the deciding match of the WTA Finals in November, when she picked up a record $5.2 million in prize money.<\/p>\n “I could take only positive from that week,” she said. “This is what I’m trying to do … remembering some good stuff from this WTA Final.”<\/p>\n The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan 29, 2026, 07:35 AM ET Elena Rybakina set up a rematch of the 2023 Australian Open final…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-437094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/r1607269_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&w=130&h=130&scale=crop&location=center.jpeg\")
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