March 25 (Reuters) – Elena Rybakina rallied from a set down to beat Jessica Pegula 2-6 6-3 6-4 in the Miami Open quarter-finals on Wednesday, as the world number two reached the last four of the WTA 1000 event for the third time.
Rybakina recovered from a slow start at Hard Rock Stadium to claim her fifth consecutive win over the American, following earlier victories this season at the Australian Open and Indian Wells.
“It’s always very difficult matches with Jessica,” Rybakina said in her on-court interview. “She started playing well, and I was a bit rushing and frustrated, but I’m happy that I managed to bounce back and turn it around in the second set.
“Couple times I got lucky. I was trying to come a little bit more to the net. Jessica plays very fast and sometimes short, so it was not easy to just stay back I had to adapt a little bit.”
She will next face either Hailey Baptiste or world number one Aryna Sabalenka, against whom she fell in the Indian Wells final earlier this month.
(Reporting by Janina Nuno Rios in Mexico , editing by Pritha Sarkar)
