Jessica Pegula has returned to competitive tennis in impressive fashion after dropping only five games in her match against former top 10 player Maria Sakkari at the Adelaide International.
The US Open runner-up delayed her start to the season due to a knee injury which also forced her withdrawal from last November’s WTA Finals in Saudi Arabia. Despite her lack of match play in recent weeks, Pegula managed to pull off a 6-4, 6-1, win over Sakkari who gained entry into the main draw as a lucky loser.
Pegula, who is the top seed in Adelaide, won 59% of her service points and broke Sakkari six times during their match. She now leads the Greek 6-5 in their head-to-head.
“It’s always tough getting that first win of the new year,” said Pegula.
“You don’t know what to expect out of everyone not to mention yourself especially heading into the Australian Open next week but my focus is on here so I was glad to get it done here today.”
“I have played her (Sakkari) a bunch of times so there was a little strategy that I wanted to execute, and I was able to do that.”
The world No.7 is hoping to continue the momentum she gained from 2024 where she played her first Grand Slam final and won two WTA titles.
“You always kinda wanna be working on things: movement, serve and then little intangibles like slices, coming in and trying to get a little bit better at the net,” she said.
“Not only that but sticking to my game and getting a little better at what I do best and not losing sight of how I like to play tennis.”
Pegula is aiming to better her performance in Adelaide from 12 months ago when she reached the semi-finals. In the next round she will play fellow American Ashlyn Krueger.
Elsewhere, second seed Emma Navarro ousted world No.27 Ekaterina Alexanderova 7-6(4), 6-4, in exactly two hours to reach the last eight. Navarro has contested only one WTA Tour final in her career but that was in Australia last year at the Hobart International.
“Yeah, it went a little bit longer than I’d hoped. I couldn’t close it out from the start but played really tough and got my first win of the year and happy to be back in Australia,” said Navarro.
Navarro will next play Liudmila Samsonova who beat Belinda Bencic 7-6(3), 4-6, 6-4.
