Jessica Pegula survives in Charleston to meet Sofia Kenin in Sunday’s final, while Osorio successfully makes it into the Bogotá final in defense of her title.
“It’s been the same kind of storyline in the past, when I’ve played her. Played a good first set, she comes back in the second, and then, usually, I tend to lose the third. So glad I was able to flip that script today.” Jessica Pegula
Charleston | WTA 500 Credit One Charleston Open
Top seed Jessica Pegula staged a final-set rally to defeat Russian 9th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova, 6-2 2-6 7-5, and reach the final of the WTA 500 Charleston Open clay court tournament on Saturday.
In Sunday’s championship match, she will meet unseeded Sofia Kenin, who advanced when her semi-final opponent, 8th-seeded Amanda Anisimova, retired hurt in the first set.
In the topsy-turvy 3rd set of her semi-final, Pegula fought back from a break down on two separate occasions.
“[Alexandrova is] a really good player,” Pegula said. “There’s a reason she beats a lot of top players. Her game is tough to play against, the way she strikes the ball, she’s serving well, returning well.”
Pegula, who ousted defending champion Danielle Collins in Friday’s quarter-finals, looked to be in trouble after falling 2-4 down in the decider, with Alexandrova serving for a 5-2 lead.
The Russian, though, handed her a lifeline with a shaky service game, and after finding herself down 15-40, gifted Pegula the break with a double-fault.
Pegula then held to level at 4-4 and, although Alexandrova also held for a 5-4 lead, the American World No 4 was clearly now in the ascendancy, leveling again on serve at 5-5, and then grabbing a crucial break in the 11th game for a 6-5 lead.
Serving for the match, Pegula soon held 2 match points at 40-15, and while Alexandrova saved the first with a crosscourt forehand into the corner, the top seed lasered a backhand down the line to clinch the win.
“That was a tough match—it wasn’t the prettiest,” said Pegula. “It was really windy. There were some awkward shots, and we were both very uncomfortable. On some short balls and low balls, it was kind of swirling. I was just trying not to get frustrated.”
Pegula was stopped in the Charleston semi-finals in the past two years and had to use all of her mettle to come from behind on the gusty day, outlasting 26th-ranked Alexandrova in 2 hours and 20 minutes, and leveling their head-to-head at 2-2.
“It’s been the same kind of storyline in the past, when I’ve played her,” Pegula said. “Played a good first set, she comes back in the second, and then, usually, I tend to lose the third. So glad I was able to flip that script today.”
Amanda Anisimova (L) retires in the first set from her match against Sofia Kenin in the second Charleston semi-final on Saturday
Pegula will now face Kenin in Sunday’s final, after the 2020 Australian Open champion advanced when Anisimova retired hurt from their all-American contest.
Anisimova needed a medical timeout trailing 1-2 in the first set after appearing to suffer a hip injury, and although she struggled on, her mobility from that point was impaired, and she retired after falling 2-5 behind after 34 minutes.
“It’s never nice to see,” Kenin said of her opponent’s injury. “I felt like she was struggling, so you try to keep it as respectful as possible, taking it point-by-point. It’s unfortunate for this to happen.”
Kenin, ranked 44, had made 6 appearances in Charleston and come away with only 2 wins until this week, when she has beaten both Bernarda Pera and Belinda Bencic in straight sets before upsetting 5th-seeded and last year’s finalist Daria Kasatkina, 6-3 7-6(7), in a thrilling encounter, before advancing to the semi-finals with a straight-sets win over No 14 Anna Kalinskaya.
The last time Kenin won 4 straight matches was in Tokyo last year, when she got to the final, beating Kasatkina on the way.
Pegula leads Kenin 3-2 in their head-to-head and won their most recent meeting, when she beat the former World No 4 in the 2nd round of last year’s US Open on her way to her first Grand Slam singles final.
Kenin, though, beat Pegula at Roland Garros, 4-6 6-1 6-4, in 2020, the year she made the final at the clay-court Grand Slam.
“Jess is a machine,” Kenin said. “She can play literally week in, week out. I really look up to her. I think what she’s doing is great. I hope tomorrow she can be a little bit off so I can win.”
“I’m expecting a battle. I’m expecting her to come out fully recovered, 100 percent.”
Kenin has traveled a long way in a startling short period of time. Back in February, she was ranked 75 and was forced to qualify for the WTA 500 event in Abu Dhabi, promptly losing in the 1st round.
Now she is on the cusp of some significant personal history.
“The way I’m playing, my mentality has changed,” Kenin said. “I’m not looking up to Jess in terms of, ‘Oh, my God, can I win a few games?’ I’m going there with the attitude of winning the match.”
“I’m feeling very good with the level I’ve played throughout the week.”
This is the first all-American final at Charleston since Martina Navratilova beat Jennifer Capriati in the 1990 trophy match.
“It’s great that one of us is going to hold the trophy, and I hope I’ll be the one,” Kenin added.
32-year-old qualifier Katarzyna Kawa ended the run of 16-year-old Julieta Pareja in straight sets to reach her first Hologic WTA Tour singles final in 6 years at the Copa Cosalnitas Zurich on Saturday.
Bogotá | WTA 250 Copa Colsanitas presentado por VISA
Home favourite Camila Osorio will look to become the 2nd Colombian to win 3 titles at Bogotá after defeating Julia Riera from Argentina, 6-4 7-5, in Saturday’s semi-finals, recovering from a break deficit in each set to advance.
Before that win, Osorio had eliminated Higuta Barraza and two-time former champion Tatjana Maria in straight sets.
The only set she has dropped during the week was in the Last 16 against the big-serving American, Emina Bektas.
Osorio is a two-time winner at her home tournament, and is looking to emulate Colombia’s Fabiola Zuluaga, who is the only player who has won more titles in Bogotá, with 4.
Meeting her in the championship match is first-time WTA Tour finalist Katarzyna Kawa from Poland, who was a 7-5 6-2 winner over American teenager Julieta Pareja, a fellow qualifier.
The Pole upset the top seed, Marie Bouzkova from Czechia in the quarter-finals on her way to the final.
After laboring to victory in the earlier rounds, the 32-year-old Pole marched into her first WTA Tour final by dismissing Pareja, using her experience to see off the talented teenager in 2 hours and 2 minutes.
Kawa’s run is remarkable considering that she has spent at least 15 hours on the court in Bogotá, half of which was battling through qualifying, beating Gergana Topalova in 3 hours and Maria Tig in 4 hours and 15 minutes.
Although her seismic run has defied logic, Kawa is still the underdog in the WTA Bogotá final against the home crowd favourite Osorio, especially since the Pole has taken multiple medical timeouts for a hip injury on her journey.
Defending champion Camila Osorio thrilled the Bogotá crowd by beating Julia Riera to return to the final
