"It was hot and I didn't want to play long points" says Pegula after win over Sakkari

Jessica Pegula sent Maria Sakkari packing avenging her Miami Open defeat from last year and her tactic was quite unique.

As the Australian Summer continues to bring heat to the continent so do the temperatures rise every day. Pegula is not a fan of playing tennis in hot conditions so the American was keen on keeping the rallies short and sweet. She jokingly explained that that allowed her to win the match:

"It was a little hot out there today, so I didn't really want to kind of play a lot of long points. I thought I really had to step up and be aggressive when I had the chances to. Luckily I was able to capitalize on that pretty well today and play a pretty clean match, I think."

It was a very clean match by Pegula who reaches another quarterfinal in Melbourne after doing so last year as well. This time around she was able to do it with a very inspiring effort against Sakkari who won their last meeting. Pegula admitted that she did not think about that match:

"I know that she's always going to fight and compete well. I wasn't really thinking about that [Miami] match. Obviously I know that I need to step up and take my chances. She did start to play better at the end. She started serving better. In that last game she made me earn it, which is what I thought would happen."