Andreeva beats Pegula to book first WTA Finals championship ticket

Indian Wells, Nov 15 (SocialNews.XYZ) World No. 3 Mirra Andreeva has secured her spot in WTA Finals championship wth a 6-3, 6-4 semifinal win over No. 5 Jessica Pegula in one hour and 25 minutes.

Andreeva, who remains unbeaten at Indian Wells after sweeping Group , will face No. 6 seed Elina Svitolina in a rematch of the Group 2 singles opener.

Andreeva, 19, came into semifinal as the youngest player to make the last four since Caroline Wozniacki in 2009. Cumulatively, Andreeva has won 48 games, dropping just 18. That's the fewest games dropped en route to the final since the round robin format was introduced in 2003, WTA reports.

Additionally, she's the youngest player to make the final since Maria Sharapova in 2004 and is the third player, joining Serena Williams and Chris Evert to win their first four matches at the FAGE WTA Finals in straight sets.

"It was very interesting for me to see how the match would actually go because I don't really know how she plays, and she's actually one of the players where when I watch her matches, I cannot really understand where exactly she will hit," Andreeva told reporters.

"With her, today I was really trying to react at the spot because I couldn't really understand her pattern. Then, the longer the match went, the more I understood more or less what she does."

Earlier, Svitolina returned to the WTA Finals title match after a straight-sets win over Linda Noskova. Three trips to the WTA Finals, three finals. One more win and Svitolina has her second title.

Andreeva and Svitolina opened the week against each other, and now they’ll close it out with the title on the line. They’ll be the ninth pair to meet twice at the same WTA Finals and the first since Garbine Muguruza and Anett Kontaveit in 2021.

Svitolina will play for her second WTA Finals title seven years after her last appearance in the championship match. At 32, she’s the oldest finalist since Venus Williams in 2017.

Source: IANS