Maria Sakkari and Jessica Pegula played some great matches over the years, and they just played another great one at the 2023 Citi Open.
The stakes were pretty high in this one, as a place in the Citi Open final was at stake. In that sense, it's no surprise that we saw both players giving their all. While both of them have been Top 10 players on the WTA Tour for a while, neither has many trophies in their cabinet.
Sakkari only has one while Pegula has two so a chance to play for another one meant a lot to both. Our preview broke the matchup down pretty well and as predicted the match went into three sets. The first one saw Sakkari continue her resurgence by playing a pretty strong set with very few mistakes.
She didn't face a single break point while doing most of her damage on the second serve of Pegula which proved enough for the 6-3 finish. The second set saw Pegula battle back in pretty strong fashion, especially considering she was down 1-4.
Sakkari was essentially on her way to winning the match when Pegula started to bomb away understanding that it was now or never. It worked as she won five games in a row to win the set 6-4 in stunning fashion.
Many expected Sakkari to lose the match as she's prone to comebacks from opponents, but this time, it wasn't the case. The Greek player remained calm and kept playing her tennis; tennis that ultimately nearly won her the match in two sets.
Eventually, she found the break she needed going up 4-2. She held her serve to go up 5-2 and that was that. The final score was 6-3 4-6 6-2 for Sakkari, who will face either Coco Gauff or Liudmila Samsonova in the final. A spectacular run from Sakkari, who couldn't find her best tennis recently.
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