Aryna Sabalenka advanced to the semifinals after a 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 victory over Jessica Pegula in a Riyadh round-robin match that lasted two hours and three minutes.

“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.

The result added another chapter to a one-sided overall rivalry: Sabalenka has won nine of their 12 meetings, seven of those in straight sets. Still, recent encounters have tightened. At the US Open, Pegula won a set for the first time in two years before Sabalenka prevailed 6-4 in the third. In Wuhan, Pegula ended a four-match skid against Sabalenka by winning a third-set tiebreak.

Both arrived in form. Pegula had beaten Coco Gauff and Sabalenka had beaten Jasmine Paolini in earlier matches in Riyadh. On Tuesday, Sabalenka captured the opening set by forcing errors and dictating enough points. Pegula answered in the second by stepping in, counter-punching and coming to the net.

“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.’”

Pegula threatened to take control early in the final set, breaking for 2-1 and appearing to move toward a 3-1 lead. Sabalenka reversed course with a series of aggressive returns, a forehand passing shot and decisive groundstrokes that produced multiple breaks and a run to 5-2 before sealing the win with a forehand winner.

“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.”

Statistically the match was noisy: Sabalenka hit only two more winners than Pegula and made 19 more unforced errors, but she forced Pegula into 36 errors to 19. With a 2-0 record in the round-robin, Sabalenka has moved into the semifinals. For all her success, she has never won the WTA Finals and has reached the title match just once; this is the first season she has been No. 1 for the majority of the year.

Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka and former Wimbledon finalist Nick Kyrgios are scheduled to face each other in a “Battle of the Sexes” exhibition set for Dec. 28 in Dubai. The match will be played indoors at the 17,000-seat Coca-Cola Arena, and both players posted logistical details on their social media channels after Sabalenka confirmed during the U.S. Open that discussions for the match were underway.

Before their head-to-head meeting in Dubai, both players will take part in an exhibition in New York on Dec. 8, though they will not play one another there. Sabalenka will face Naomi Osaka and Kyrgios will play Tommy Paul in that event.

Kyrgios has outlined specific conditions for the Dubai match, saying he would get only one serve and would be hitting toward a smaller side of the court. The Australian, who has barely played in recent years because of injuries, has predicted he will win easily.

“I cannot wait to get back out on court,” Kyrgios said in an Instagram story. “Honestly I’m feeling amazing. I never thought I would be back into this position, being able to travel the world, see my fans and play some amazing tennis.”

The exhibition borrows its name from the famous 1973 meeting between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, a match King won in straight sets in the Houston Astrodome. Sabalenka enters the off-season as a four-time Grand Slam champion and one of the top attractions on the women’s tour, while Kyrgios returns to a spotlighted appearance after a period of limited competitive play.

The defending champion preserved her WTA Finals defence with a composed performance, defeating Jasmine Paolini 6-3, 6-2 to level her record in the Stefanie Graf Group at 1-1. The round-robin format, Gauff said, offers “another chance to prove yourself” if a player begins the tournament poorly, and she used Tuesday’s match to respond after a rocky start to the week.

Gauff arrived at the event having dropped her opener to Jessica Pegula in three sets, a match in which she produced 12 double faults and 45 unforced errors. Against Paolini she was far steadier: she served just three doubles, was broken once and closed the contest in one hour and 19 minutes. “I was just trying to play relaxed,” Gauff said after the victory.

The result eliminated Paolini from semifinal contention regardless of the later outcome between No. 1 seed Aryna Sabalenka and No. 5 seed Jessica Pegula. Gauff’s win also continued a reversal of recent head-to-head form. After losing her first three matches to Paolini this season, she has now won two straight meetings — first in Wuhan, and now in Riyadh. After beating Paolini in China, she won the title.

Gauff acknowledged the history of her early struggles at the year-end event. “I played a WTA Finals were I lost all three matches [in 2022], so I was determined to not make this a repeat of that. I knew that today’s win was important to keep myself in the tournament.” The victory kept her title defence alive, but it did not put qualification entirely in her hands.

She must await the conclusion of the Sabalenka-Pegula match to learn which scenarios against Sabalenka would send her through. The volatility of the round-robin phase is a defining feature of the WTA Finals and one that makes retaining the crown particularly challenging. Gauff is seeking to become just the fourth woman in the past 25 years to capture back-to-back year-end titles.