To see detailed h2h stats and predictions for Jessica Pegula vs Elena Rybakina, see our Stevegtennis head to head prediction here.
It is possibly a bit far to say that this Miami Open matchup is a defacto final but the winner of the clash between Jessica Pegula and Elena Rybakina will go into the championship match on Saturday as a heavy favourite whether it is Sorana Cirstea, Petra Kvitova or Ekaterina Alexandrova waiting in the wings. Pegula has won both matches against Rybakina so far including here last year where the pair were ranked 21 and 18 respectively, showing how much improvement has been made in 12 months.
Rybakina dealt with Martina Trevisan about as easily as expected, hitting 10 aces on her way a 6-3 6-0 victory against the Italian. It was always going to be a tough ask with the power of the Indian Wells champ being a mismatch for Trevisan, who was broken five times overall. “I just need to focus match by match, and I have a tough opponent. Of course it would be amazing to achieve something like that, but it’s still far away.” she said afterwards, knowing the Sunshine Double is nearing closer.
Meanwhile, Pegula had it anything but easy against Anastasia Potapova in her quarter final matchup. A delayed late night match went the distance with Pegula needing to save match points before going on to win 4-6 6-3 7-6. She saved two on return at 4-5 but would also have to break for a second time to stay in the match before going to ease through the deciding set tiebreak. “She was just playing fearless, just going for her shots, moving well,” Pegula said on Potapova. “The key was to not get too frustrated and just try and stay within one break in the third even though I was really gassed. I knew regardless she would get tight trying to close it out. She got a little tight and I was able to take my chances.”
While Pegula does lead the head to head, it does feel like Rybakina is ready to break her duck with the current level of tennis she is putting out there. The conditions are favouring the bigger hitters while the Rybakina serve is also flying here, with the ability to regularly put up 10 aces a huge help. Pegula is no slouch on the power front either but if the points are kept short, it feels like there can only be one winner. “Obviously she’s picked up her level since then, so it’ll be a tough test, especially after this match, just physically see how I feel. Hopefully I can recover in time. At least I have another day.” Pegula said.
Prediction – Elena Rybakina in straight sets
For additional head to head predictions of Jessica Pegula Elena Rybakina, you can see detailed H2H stats for Jessica Pegula vs Elena Rybakina.
To see all our predictions for upcoming matches, based on our machine learning model analysing results since 1960, see our tennis predictions page here.
