Jessica Pegula will not go away easily. Ekaterina Alexandrova learned that on Saturday in the semifinals of the Credit One Charleston Open.
Even when Alexandrova appeared to be in great shape for a big upset with a 4-2 lead in the third set and getting ready to serve, Pegula wouldn’t go away. She came right back and easily broke Alexandrova on the way to a 6-2, 2-6, 7-5 victory. That was the beginning of the end of Alexandrova’s bid for an upset.
Pegula is now on the edge of winning her first COCO title. All she has to do is defeat unseeded Grand Slam tournament winner Sofia Kenin in Sunday’s final.
Kenin is perhaps Pegula’s toughest task in this tournament. Alexandrova and 2024 COCO champion Danielle Collins had been expected to be Pegula’s real tests. But now Kenin brings a new challenge on the court. She only had to play a short time in the semifinals, due to No. 8 seed Amanda Anisimova retiring with a leg injury while trailing Kenin, 5-2.
“I’m tired. I was tired yesterday. I actually felt worse yesterday (in the win over Collins),” Pegula said.
“I actually feel like okay. Obviously the tank is running a little bit low just emotionally and physically over the long three weeks that I’ve been playing a lot of tennis.
“She’s really tough,” Pegula then said about Kenin. “She’s another really tough matchup for me. She kind of hits that flat ball, can kind of take it really early, use your pace.
“She won a Grand Slam and hasn’t really quite had the results that she’s probably wanted since then. But she still pops in and beats good people and can always be really tough with her game. Like I said, takes it early. It’s uncomfortable to play against.
And she doesn’t really give you a lot emotionally. She kind of just walks side to side, stays in her own little bubble, does her thing whether she’s winning or losing.”
Kenin hasn’t been heard from much in the last few years after winning the Australian Open in 2020 and then making the French Open final. The Moscow native and now American citizen has been impressive this week, defeating No. 5 seed Daria Kasatkina and 2020 Olympic gold medalist Belinda Bencic, both have won WTA titles in Charleston.
“I know she hasn’t been at her top level for a little while, but we all know she can still play like that when she wants to, and clearly this week she’s been playing really well,” Pegula said.
“So it’s going to be, I think, another one where I’m going to have to try and use some variety, try and mix it up a little bit when I
need to, but still try and go after my shots and play my game.”
Pegula may have been somewhat lucky in defeating Alexandrova this week. After deadlocking the match in the third set at 5-5, Pegula fought off a pair of game points against Alexandrova’s serve to take a 6-5 lead and then closed out the match with a backhand winner down the line at 40-30 to finish the job.
“It’s been the same kind of story line in the past when I played her. I 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,” Pegula said about her semifinal victory.
“It was just kind of a crafty match today. I mean, the conditions were really tough. It was super windy, especially on that one side, and it was a lot of uncomfortable shots, footwork, just awkward kind of situations. So it was hard to kind of balance yourself with playing aggressive but also playing with some margin with the wind.
“She’s a really good player. I mean, there’s a reason she beats a lot of players,” Pegula said about her victory over Alexandrova. “She can play at a really high level. Her game is tough to play against, the way she strikes the ball, when she serves well, returning well. It’s weird. You hit a good serve, and she hits a better return. She kind of likes it right in the slot. And you don’t want to totally go away from that because you want to go after your serve and hit it, but we kind of talked about, hey, like if you have to change up your serve, just do it just to keep her off balance, because when she rips that return, you know, the
faster you hit a serve, the faster it comes back, which is just a tougher shot to hit right away.
“So I think at times I either got a free point or it just got me a chance to get into the point instead of hitting a good first serve and her sitting on it and kind of just ripping a fast ball right at me and then all of a sudden I’m on the defense. So I think that was something that helped a little bit today.”
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James Beck was the 2003 winner of the USTA National Media Award for print media. A 1995 MBA graduate of The Citadel, he can be reached at Jamesbecktennis@gmail.com.
