Despite looking like a cyborg in her first match, Aryna Sabalenka proved every bit a human in today's WTA Finals showdown against Jessica Pegula.
Sabalenka produced an incredible effort to take down Maria Sakkari in her first match, beating her soundly in two sets. It was a spectacular showing despite her grievances about the quality of the court, but today was not the same.
She ran into a very inspired Pegula, who was equally as impressive as herself in the opening round. Pegula downed Elena Rybakina in two sets, and with this win, she's basically in the semi-final, but she will need to wait for official confirmation, as a very specific and improbable scenario would see her third in the group.
It was a strange match mostly because of the result, as nobody really expected Sabalenka to lose so easily. It was a typical struggle performance by the Belarusian as she served badly which isn't ideal, obviously.
We've seen plenty of these performances in the past, but a lot of credit goes to Pegula, who came to play in Cancun. She did just enough from the baseline and the serve to push Sabelenka into self-destruct mode.
The Belarusian was more than happy to oblige with a very erratic performance, struggling with control all day long. She totaled five double faults and 33 unforced errors in 19 games of play, which is too much.
We basically got the Sabalenka of old, which is strange as she didn't make many appearances this year. When it comes to Pegula, she served pretty well but just handled the power of her opponent smartly, minimizing her own errors.
She finished with four aces and only 17 unforced errors, a much better mark than her opponent. She also totaled 12 winners, three less than Sabalenka (15), which indicates a more moderate approach that worked out in her favour. The final score was 6-4 6-3.
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