Danielle Collins and Emma Navarro didn’t have very good days on Friday at the Credit One Charleston Open.
Defending champion Collins and hometown crowd favorite Navarro couldn’t brighten up the day when their chances came. The first set belonged to Collins before Jessica Pegula overwhelmed Collins’ big shots the last two sets to take a 1-6, 6-3, 6-0 victory.
No. 4 seed Navarro couldn’t finish the job when she had opportunities against tall power-hitting Amanda Anisimova, who scored a 7-5, 7-6 (1) success to advance to the semifinals.
PEGULA VS. ALEXANDROVA NEXT
Thus, No. 1 seed Pegula set up a semifinal match against No. 9 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova, while No. 8 seed Anisimova gets to test unseeded Sofia Kenin in Saturday’s other semifinal.
It might be a good day to stay home and watch men’s college basketball’s Final Four. Everything appears to be up for grabs in the COCO semis and Final Four basketball semis.
Pegula seemed to put a jinx on Collins’ power the last two sets. After a 3-3 score in the second set, Pegula didn’t lose a game the rest of the match.
COLLINS’ TROUBLES AFTER FIRST SET
By the time the third set rolled around Collins simply couldn’t consistently put the ball into play against the super consistent Pegula. Collins got to deuce and one game-point while serving the third and fifth games of the third set, but could go no further.
“She was painting lines and ripping winners, returns and serving really well (in the first set),” Pegula said. But then came the last two sets. “She missed a couple of balls by like a couple of inches,” Pegula said.
“But I was trying to mix it up a little bit, trying to slice, drop shot, keep her moving, not let her kind of set up and just rip winners. It doesn’t always happen, but I was able to figure it out just kind of in the nick of time.”
NO. 3 SEED FELL TO ALEXANDROVA
About her semifinal opponent, Alexandrova, who pulled a 6-1, 6-4 upset of third seed Qinwen Zheng, Pegula said, “She’s tough. She’s beaten me the last couple of times, all in three sets. I mean, she’s tough. When she’s striking the ball in her zone, she can beat anybody. She tends to upset a lot of top seeds as well.”
Anisimova faces unseeded Sofia Kenin in the other semifinal. Kenin is the lone face among the semifinalists who owns a Grand Slam singles title. On Friday, Kenin took care of 14th seed Anna Kalinskaya, 6-4, 6-3 (the victor over Australian Open champ Madison Keys in the second round) .
Kenin appears to be on her game again after a dry spell, and is a serious threat to win the COCO title.
LATE GAMES COSTLY TO NAVARRO
Navarro played tough against the 5-11 Anisimova the first set before a large night crowd of fans, but after a 5-5 deadlock in the first set she earned a total of five game-points in the next two games while losing both games on errors.
In the second set, Navarro ran off with a 5-3 advantage, but lost the next three games before holding service in the 12th game to force a tiebreaker that Anisimova dominated. Navarro won only the fourth point when her opponent committed an error.
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James Beck (843-795-3584, h)
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.
