Jessica Pegula was on the verge of making her maiden Wimbledon semi-final but she was denied by Marketa Vondrousova who came back against all odds.
Jessica Pegula has had an interesting Wimbledon with a couple of contradicting situations. For example, she pulled out of the mixed doubles event due to an apparent injury but kept playing in singles and doubles. She has a chance to become doubles world number one on the WTA Tour if she wins the event together with Coco Gauff.
The opening set was a very interesting one as both players got broken and it was very competitive. Jessica Pegula was playing very solid tennis for much of this event but struggled a lot in the opening set. She couldn't serve at all at the start of this match finishing the first set with 41 % on her first serve.
Obviously, that allowed Vondrousova to attack more than usual and she did. She broke Pegula three times in the opening set with a solid line of 7 winners and 7 unforced errors. Pegula was quite literally a mess posting 3 winners and 13 unforced errors.
It's quite remarkable that she was able to keep the match as close as she did considering how much more stable Vondrousova was. Pegula was even up 2-0 to start the match which is a huge chance missed. She did play better much better in the second set.
Pegula jumped out to an early lead despite some shaky play. The American kept playing her aggressive play and it worked a bit better though Vondrousova started to miss more than she did in the opening set as well. The Czech player ultimately had 12 unforced errors in the second set and that proved too much as the American made it 1-1.
The final set opened with Pegula saving break points in the opening game. That was very crucial for the American as she would take a 3-1 lead later on mostly due to Vondrousova struggling to keep the ball in play. The match was also interrupted at 3-1 in the final set due to a rain shower with play resuming a bit later under the roof.
She'll remember that break because in many ways it completely destroyed her momentum. She did win her service game after they returned but then started a tremendous comeback by Vondrousova who obviously benefitted from the break.
She was all over the place when the match got suspended but played much better. Down 1-4, Vondrousova won 5 games in a row to finish things off 6-4 as Pegula couldn't put the ball into the court.
The final score was 6-4 2-6 6-4 for Vondrousova who had 7 aces and 23 winners. She also had 35 unforced errors but it didn't cost her the match. The Czech will play either Iga Swiatek or Elina Svitolina in the next round.
0 Comments