Aryna Sabalenka goes "as hard as I can, and heavy as I can” to edge Jessica Pegula in Riyadh

“She pushed me, and I love it,” Aryna Sabalenka said after beating Jessica Pegula 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 in their Riyadh round-robin match on Tuesday.

“I love playing against her because it always great tennis, great level, great points.”

Looking at the head-to-head between these two, you might suspect that the world No. 1 was just being nice. She has won nine of their 12 meetings, and seven of those wins have come in straight sets.

But if you zoom in closer, and focus on what has happened between them since September of this year, you can understand where Sabalenka is coming from, and why she feels so stressed by Pegula.

🖥️📲REPLAY: Aryna Sabalenka def. Jessica Pegula, 2025 WTA Finals RR

In the US Open semifinals, Pegula took her first set from Sabalenka in two years, before succumbing 6-4 in the third. A month later, in the Wuhan semifinals, Pegula ended her four-match skid against Sabalenka by beating her in a third-set tiebreaker.

For years, Sabalenka had too much pace and offense for Pegula to handle. Now the American, one of the WTA’s best counter-punchers and power-absorbers, had finally found a way to use Sabalenka’s pace against her.

This week, each woman continued her strong run of recent form by winning her opening match in Riyadh—Pegula beat Coco Gauff, Sabalenka beat Jasmine Paolini. Over the first two sets on Tuesday, they did the same to each other. Sabalenka controlled enough of the points, and forced enough errors off her opponent’s racquet, to win the first set. Pegula counter-punched, charged the net, and coaxed Sabalenka into misfiring often enough to turn the tables and win the second.

📲🖥️ Stream all the action from WTA Finals on the Tennis Channel App!

For a 10-minute span at the start of the third, it looked as if Pegula had solved her Sabalenka problem, and was going to make it two wins over her in a row. She broke for 2-1 with a big backhand return, and served her way to the brink of a 3-1 lead in the next game. Sabalenka could only roll her eyes, stick her hands on her hips, and stare at her team in frustration. A meltdown, like the ones she had suffered at the first three majors of the year, looked like a distinct possibility.

Instead, Sabalenka went in the opposite direction. On the verge of going down 1-3, she gave herself a little more margin for error, and found the range on her return. She broke for 2-2, cracked a forehand pass for 3-2, powered a series of cross-court ground strokes to break again for 4-2, upped the speed on her backhands to hold for 5-2, and closed out the match with a forehand winner.

The contest had lasted two hours and three minutes, but it only seemed to take Sabalenka a few big swings to leave Pegula in the dust down the stretch.

“In the second set, she just stepped in and played incredible tennis,” Sabalenka said. “In the third set I was just thinking, ‘I’m gonna go after my shots. I’m gonna try to stay even more aggressive. Put that speed back with her and hope that I’ll get my chance.’”

The strategy, according to Sabalenka, was exceedingly simple: When all else failed, pummel the ball.

“You know what,” Sabalenka said to herself, ‘I have nothing else to do, I’m just going as hard as I can, and heavy as I can, down the lines.”

Sabalenka hit only two more winners than Pegula, and made 19 more unforced errors. But it was that third, often-overlooked stat, forced errors, that told the tale. Sabalenka forced Pegula into 17 more mistakes—36 to 19.

For all of her time at or near the top of the rankings, Sabalenka has never won the WTA Finals, and has reached the title match just once. But this is the first time that she has been No. 1 for the majority of a season, and she may be more motivated to prove she’s the best of the best. With a 2-0 record, she is in pole position to reach the semifinals.

Maybe just as important, now she knows that she has a Plan B whenever she needs one. Even against the game’s top competition, Sabalenka’s power alone can be enough.