Jessica Pegula’s fine summer form continued with an opening victory at the China Open, with the American winning her first match since the US Open.
After a slow start to 2024, a strong North American hard court resurgence saw the 30-year-old defend her Canadian Open title, reach the Cincinnati final, and then reach her first Grand Slam final in New York.
Playing for the first time since that US Open final loss to Aryna Sabalenka, the world No 3 impressively rallied from a break down in the second set to claim a 6-1, 7-6(4) win over Diane Parry.
“She’s super tricky,” Pegula said of Parry post-match.
“I thought she started serving really well at the start of the second. She was holding her serve a lot better, and I had one bad service game.
“But honestly, I thought I still was playing really well. I think in the first set I played perfect. Second set, I knew maybe it would change as she started finding her rhythm a little bit.
“She’s super tricky with her slice and the way she plays. It’s a lot of patience, and you really have to think out there.”
Victory was a 16th win in her past 18 matches, with both of her losses coming to world No 2 Sabalenka.
Sabalenka is the top seed in Beijing while Pegula is seeded second, and the American will surely fancy her chances of another deep run.
Friday’s win was her 135th on hard courts since the start of 2020, with world No 1 Iga Swiatek the only woman to have won more matches on the surface in that period.
The Pole has 147 such wins since the start of 2020, with Pegula currently two wins ahead of Sabalenka, with the Belarusian – a three-time major winner on the surface – holding 133 hard victories on the surface.
Five of Pegula’s six WTA titles have come on hard courts – including all three of her WTA 1000 triumphs – while 11 of her 14 career finals have come on the surface.
Pegula has an interesting third round test next against 32nd seed Veronika Kudermetova, who battled past Wang Xinyu in her second round match.
Kudermetova is currently down at 39th in the world and could fall out of the top 60 this week, though has been as high as ninth in the WTA Rankings.
The Russian has also won both previous meetings between the two, winning clashes against Pegula in Madrid and Tokyo in 2023.
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