Jessica Pegula has secured her spot in the quarter finals of the San Diego Open with a 6-3 6-1 win against Coco Vandeweghe in 69 minutes.
Pegula went down a break at 0-2 down, but she came back by winning 12 of the last 14 games.
Vandeweghe converted her third break point in the first game of the opening set. Pegula broke back in the fourth game to draw level to 2-2. Vandeweghe rallied from 0-40 down to break on her fourth opportunity in the sixth game and held her next service games to close out the first set 6-3. Pegula won the final five games from 1-1 with two breaks to seal the second set 6-1.
Pegula has qualified for the WTA Finals, which starts on 31st October in Fort Worth.
The US player avenged her defeat against Vandeweghe in three sets in Charleston in their only earlier this year.
Pegula hit 11 winners to just 2 unforced errors and won 78% of her first serve points.
“When she is on with her serve and her returns, it’s really tough. My goal was just to try and attack and put pressure on her serve when I got the chance. On my serve I just had to serve smart and be ready for a big return. She has got so much easy return, so sometimes she can put a lot of pressure on you, so I was just trying to focus on you, so I was just trying on those two things”, said Jessica Pegula.
This year’s Australian Open finalist Danielle Collins beat Martina Trevisan 6-2 6-4. Collins converted seven of her ten break points.
Collins earned an early break in the second game to take a 2-0 lead. Trevisan wasted two break-back points in the third game. Collins went up up a double break in the fourth game and held serve to race out to a 5-0 lead.
Trevisan pulled one break back in the seventh game to reduce the game to 2-5, but Collins earned her third break at deuce in the eighth game to close out the first set 6-2.
Trevisan converted her fourth break point in the third game to take a 2-1 lead, but Collins broke back to draw level to 2-2. Collins broke for the second time in the sixth game to take a 4-2 lead. In the seventh game Collins rallied from 0-40 to draw level to 40-all, but Trevisan broke back with a forehand down the line in the seventh game to 3-4. Collins broke serve at love in the eighth game to take a 5-3 lead. Trevisan broke straight back at 30 for 4-5 with a crosscourt backhand return, Collins sealed the win with a break at love.
“She is never going to give up. We are playing professional tennis out here, so at 5-0, I knew that she was going to probably end up doing something a little bit different and try to make some adjustments with her game. Nobody goes down easy in these matches and she certainly made those adjustments within my game technically. Sometimes that happened and sometimes that didn’t, so that was little bit frustrating for me today, but ultimately, I think the competitiveness and the fiery personality that I have inside pushed me to the finish-line”, said Collins.
