SAN DIEGO, March 2, 2024 (by Richard Osborne)
American Jessica Pegula’s extended Australian Open-to-Cymbiotika San Diego Open hiatus doesn’t seem to have affected her game.The fifth-ranked Pegula, sidelined by both illness and a neck injury in 2024, has been in fine form this week at Barnes Tennis Center, where on Friday the top seed advanced to the semifinals via a 6-1, 2-6, 6-2 victory over 51st-ranked Anna Blinkova.That’s not to say she hasn’t needed to shake some rust.
Keeping it going in SD 😍@jpegula gets over the line against Blinkova to make her way into the #SanDiegoOpen semifinals! pic.twitter.com/BvIkfnWx59
— wta (@WTA) March 2, 2024
“Anna’s always a really tough competitor,” said Pegula, bidding for a career-first WTA 500 singles title this week in Southern California. “She makes you really have to earn it. I feel like I started out playing really well, then she changed up her game plan and started hitting a lot of high balls. I wasn’t stepping in and was getting frustrated. I reeled off some really bad errors for a couple of games there, but I managed to find my range.”Pegula would finish with 24 winners to 17 unforced errors, the majority of which came in the second set.Pegula’s compatriot Emma Navarro is into the semifinals in San Diego for the second year in a row. The third seed eliminated the last remaining qualifier in the draw, 113th-ranked Daria Saville of Australia, 6-4, 6-2, in one hour and 27 minutes.Navarro, the 2021 NCAA singles titlist at the University of Virginia, was trailing 1-4 in the opener before reeling off five straight games to take the set and assume control of the match.“Someone in the crowd told me to wake up. I guess that was maybe the push I needed,” laughed the 22-year-old Navarro, who capitalized on eight of her 14 break-point opportunities. “It’s tough playing someone I’ve never played before. I was just kind of getting used to her game and putting together a strategy of how I wanted to play. It took me a little bit to find that, but I got there in the end. I’m happy with the win and excited to be moving forward.”It will be Navarro’s fifth tour-level semifinal in less than a year after Strasbourg, San Diego, Auckland and Hobart, where she captured her first WTA title.There will be no return trip to the semifinals for 2022 runner-up Donna Vekic of Croatia. The seventh seed was an upset victim on a windswept day in Barnes Stadium, falling to 49th-ranked Katie Boulter, 6-4, 6-3, in one hour and 36 minutes. It marked another high-profile scalp for Great Britain’s top-ranked player, who earlier this week shocked second seed Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil in the second round, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.“It was an absolute battle,” said the 27-year-old Boulter, who overcame a 1-3 first-set deficit to reach the second tour-level semifinal of her career. “Very tricky conditions. Not easy to get any rhythm for either of us, because we’re both big hitters. I found it tough to kind of get into the match. I just tried to stay as strong as I could and somehow found a way over the line.”Did she approach the game any differently given the windy conditions?“I’m an aggressive player, so I do try to go for it no matter what the conditions are,” said Boulter, who is in for a first-time matchup with Navarro on Saturday.
San Diego Open – Barnes Tennis Center$ 922,573February 26-March 3 2024Results – Friday, Mar 1QF – [3] N. Melichar-Martinez (USA) / E. Perez (AUS) d. L. Marozava / K. Zimmermann (BEL) 62 61QF – [2] S. Hunter (AUS) / K. Siniakova (CZE) d. E. Hozumi (JPN) / M. Ninomiya (JPN) 64 62QF – [1] J. Pegula (USA) d. A. Blinkova 61 26 62QF – [6] M. Kostyuk (UKR) d. [4] A. Pavlyuchenkova 36 64 63QF – [3] E. Navarro (USA) d. [Q] D. Saville (AUS) 64 62QF – K. Boulter (GBR) d. [7] D. Vekic (CRO) 64 63Schedule – Saturday, Mar 2BARNES STADIUM starts at 12:00 PM[3] N. Melichar-Martinez (USA) / E. Perez (AUS) vs [2] S. Hunter (AUS) / K. Siniakova (CZE)NB 3:00 PM [3] E. Navarro (USA) vs K. Boulter (GBR)[1] J. Pegula (USA) vs [6] M. Kostyuk (UKR)After suitable rest [1] D. Krawczyk (USA) / J. Pegula (USA) vs U. Eikeri (NOR) / H. Guo (CHN)
