Jessica Pegula directly benefited from Elena Rybakina's loss to Aryna Sabalenka as the American tennis star officially booked a place for the WTA Finals in Riyadh.
On Friday, Pegula was the first in quarterfinal action at the WTA 1000 tournament in Wuhan, beating Katerina Siniakova 2-6 6-0 6-3. After the American and the Czech concluded their match, defending champion Aryna Sabalenka took on Rybakina and defeated the Kazakh 6-3 6-3.
In live Race to Riyadh rankings, Pegula currently has 4,880 points. That makes her the fifth player to have secured a place for the WTA Finals - previously, Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek, Amanda Anisimova, and Coco Gauff did the same.
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Pegula set for her fourth WTA Finals appearance
When Pegula made her WTA Finals debut in 2022, she was 28. While the American late-bloomer failed to make it past the group stage in her debut, she reached the WTA Finals final in 2023 before finishing as runner-up to Swiatek. Last year - in what marked the WTA Finals' inaugural edition in Riyadh - she exited the event in the group stage.
Meanwhile, Pegula admitted to feeling a bit tense at the start of her Wuhan match against Siniakova.
I think I was just going for too much. Maybe I wasnt relaxed enough. I think she came out pressuring me really quickly, and then I just got kind of tense. So, in the second set, I just tried to, honestly, chill out and let my hands and feet and everything just get into timing," the American tennis star said after coming back from a set down to beat Siniakova in Wuhan.
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Pegula plays against Sabalenka in the Wuhan semifinal, where she will try to snap her four-match losing streak to the Belarusian.
