Jessica Pegula suffers China Open agony days after saving match points vs Emma Raducanu | Tennis | Sport
Jessica Pegula’s impressive third-round victory over Emma Raducanu at the China Open came back to haunt her. The American saved three match points to beat Raducanu 3-6 7-6(9) 6-0 on Monday, but Pegula was the one who blew three match points in Saturday’s semi-final.
The No. 5 seed served for the match against Linda Noskova at 6-5 in the final set and had three match points on her serve but she got broken and they went to a tiebreak, where Noskova won 6-3 1-6 7-6(6).
Pegula stormed back to force a decider after losing the first set. And it turned out to be a marathon third set, starting with four consecutive breaks of serve.
The American broke again to serve for the match at 6-5, at which point they’d already been playing the final set for over an hour. She led 40-15 but Noskova got to deuce, and Pegula couldn’t capitalise on her third match point as the Czech star broke to force a tiebreak.
Pegula had an early double mini-break lead at 3-1 in the tiebreak, but she sent an overhead well long and then made another mistake to find herself at 3-3.
It was Noskova’s turn to feel the pressure after taking a mini-break lead, as she double faulted to relinquish her advantage.
Pegula then saved a match point, but she couldn’t make it out unscathed. On Noskova’s second match point, the No. 5 seed sent the ball wide, sending her opponent into Sunday’s final.
Aged just 20, Noskova is now through to the biggest final of her career, where she takes on another American in No. 4 seed Amanda Anisimova.
“I think this was my best match yet, I’m just really happy with the win,” the world No. 27 said.
“Honestly, I don’t even know about the final. I’m just so glad I won today, it was a tough match mentally and physically, and everything else! I’m just going to treasure this win at least today.”
Afterwards, Noskova expressed what everyone was thinking as she signed the camera lens in celebration. “Finals. What just happened?” she wrote.
Pegula will now have a few days to regroup ahead of next week’s Wuhan Open, where she could well face Raducanu again in the third round if they both make it that far.
When she saved three match points to beat Raducanu earlier in the week, Pegula told the crowd: “It was right there, it was really, really close. And to be honest, I think I got a little lucky on those two backhand winners [both down match point]. But I just tried to keep fighting for as long as I could.”
Noskova may be the one who feels lucky this time around, and she’ll be hoping to cause another upset when she meets Anisimova on Sunday.
