Jessica Pegula banished her Miami Open demons with a gutsy semi-final win over tournament breakout star Alex Eala on Thursday.<\/p>\n
After previous semi-final defeats in 2022 and 2023, and a quarter-final loss twelve months ago, a 7-6(3), 5-7, 6-3 victory over teen sensation Eala powered the American into a first final at the tournament.<\/p>\n
It is a third final of 2025 for Pegula<\/a>, and the US star will lift her eighth career title \u2013 and fourth WTA 1000 title \u2013 should she beat world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n However, it is not just the title at stake for Pegula.<\/p>\n The 31-year-old has been handed a golden opportunity to replace Coco Gauff as the US No 1.<\/p>\n The US has an incredibly strong presence towards the top of the WTA Tour, with Gauff, Pegula, and Madison Keys ranked world No 3, No 4, and No 5, respectively.<\/p>\n Gauff and Pegula have been established figures inside the top 10 for numerous seasons now, with Keys surging to a new career-high of world No 5 after a stunning Australian Open triumph in January.<\/p>\n Heading into the Miami Open, Gauff held 6,063 ranking points, with world No 4 Pegula on 5,361 points and Keys just behind on 5,004 points.<\/p>\n However, things have fallen into place perfectly for Pegula in Miami.<\/p>\n The world No 4 has, for now, moved up to 5,796 points in the WTA Live Rankings, earning an extra 435 ranking points after bettering last year\u2019s quarter-final exit with her run to the final this fortnight.<\/p>\n That has helped increase her lead over world No 5 Keys significantly, with the Australian Open champion falling to 4,949 points after a shock round-three exit to Eala; she had reached round four in 2024.<\/p>\n And, Pegula now has Gauff\u2019s world No 3 \u2013 and US No 1 \u2013 ranking in her sights.<\/p>\n Gauff fell in the fourth round of the Miami Open for the second straight year, meaning she stays on 6,063 points, having dropped 270 points in Indian Wells a fortnight ago.<\/p>\n Pegula has closed the gap significantly over the past month and, if she were to win Saturday\u2019s final, would move above her compatriot in the rankings.<\/p>\n Victory over Sabalenka would mean Pegula holds 6,146 ranking points come Monday \u2013 moving back to her career-high of world No 3, and knocking Gauff back down to No 4.<\/p>\n Jessica Pegula achieves stellar WTA 1000 stat as she ends Alex Eala\u2019s dream Miami Open run<\/a><\/p>\n Martina Navratilova makes bold Emma Raducanu rankings prediction after Miami Open run<\/a><\/p>\n The equation for Pegula is a simple one, but beating Sabalenka is not going to be a straightforward task.<\/p>\n World No 1 Sabalenka has now won more matches than anyone else on the WTA Tour this year and is already in a fourth final of 2025.<\/p>\n Though she was beaten in both the Australian Open and Indian Wells finals, she was the Brisbane International champion back in January, and is perhaps the favourite to lift a first Miami Open title.<\/p>\n That is part due to her form and position as the world No 1, though Sabalenka also has a strong head-to-head record against Pegula.<\/p>\n The Belarusian leads their head-to-head 6-2, and has won their last two meetings.<\/p>\n Those matches were a 6-3, 7-5 victory in the Cincinnati Open final last August, and then a 7-5, 7-5 win in an enthralling US Open final just weeks later.<\/p>\n Both those contests were close matches, but Sabalenka appears to have another level compared to most of the WTA field when it comes to hard-court tennis, and it will be tricky for Pegula to counteract that.<\/p>\n Should Pegula win the final, she could then also lose the US No 1 ranking after just one week.<\/p>\n There would be just 83 points between her and Gauff in the rankings, while she has 195 semi-final points to defend next week at the Charleston Open.<\/p>\n Read Next<\/strong>:\u00a0WTA Rankings Winners & Losers Miami Open: Raducanu top 50, Eala +65, Sabalenka hits new milestone<\/a><\/p>\n The post Jessica Pegula handed huge rankings chance ahead of Aryna Sabalenka Miami Open showdown<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jessica Pegula banished her Miami Open demons with a gutsy semi-final win over tournament breakout star Alex Eala on Thursday. After previous semi-final defeats in 2022 and 2023, and a quarter-final loss twelve months ago, a 7-6(3), 5-7, 6-3 victory over teen sensation Eala powered the American into a first final at the tournament. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Points surge<\/h4>\n
Miami Open News<\/h2>\n
Pegula\u2019s challenge<\/h4>\n