Jessica Pegula continued her dominance of fellow American Amanda Anisimova on Thursday, pulling out a 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (4) win to improve to 6-0 all time in the series and advance to the semifinals of the WTA’s Cincinnati Open in Mason, Ohio.
Third-seeded Pegula won by the narrowest of margins, claiming 96 points to ninth-seeded Anisimova’s 95. She came out on top despite not saving any of the five break-point chances on her serve and needing to take a medical timeout down 3-0 in the second set.
Pegula converted four of seven break-point chances on Anisimova’s serve and took advantage of her opponent’s 56 unforced errors.
“Amanda is an amazing player, an amazing ball striker. I know I have a good record against her, but literally every single match is like it was today,” Pegula said after the match. “So I know I have to try and survive. Sometimes she can play lights-out tennis where there’s not much you can do, like in the second set. But I think was able to start getting some momentum at the end of that set and take it into the third and get ahead. It still wasn’t enough, but I got there.”
It seemed Pegula was going to cruise in the decisive third set when she broke Anisimova twice to open a 3-0 lead, but she was broken back twice, including in five points when attempting to serve out the match up 5-4, and then fell into a 4-3 deficit in the tiebreaker.
Pegula responded by winning the final four points to reach her seventh semifinal of the season.
She will face the winner of Thursday night’s quarterfinal between No. 2 Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan and No. 7 Iga Swiatek of Poland, the defending tournament champion, in a semifinal match Saturday. She is 3-6 all time against Rybakina and 5-7 against Swiatek.
–Field Level Media
