Jessica Pegula knocked out top seed and fellow American Coco Gauff 7-5, 7-6(2) in a rain-interrupted semifinal clash and went on to beat Anna Kalinskaya 6-7(0), 6-4, 7-6(3) in the final to win the Berlin Open on Sunday.
The semifinal was suspended on Saturday due to rain, with world number five Pegula leading 7-5, 6-6(3-1). She wasted no time after the match resumed under a cloudy sky on Sunday, winning four of the last five points to reach the final.
Pegula lost a competitive first set to Russian Kalinskaya after both players broke the other three times each. But the American bounced back, breaking in the very first game to set up a win in the second set.
Pegula, 30, broke Kalinskaya to take a 3-1 lead in the third set, but the Russian 25-year-old fought back with a break of her own and saved four break points in the next game to make it 4-4.
Kalinskaya was on the verge of two more breaks that would have taken her to victory but the American saved five match points to win both games and take the set into tiebreaker, where she ultimately prevailed.
The win marked Pegula’s fifth career singles title and the first on grass, days before she competes in the Wimbledon where she reached the quarterfinals last year.
Putintseva beats Tomljanovic in Birmingham final (via AFP)
Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva won her first senior grass-court singles title after defeating Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic 6-1, 7-6(8) in the final of the Birmingham WTA Tour event.
The 29-year-old’s previous two WTA tour titles had come on clay courts, in Nurnberg in 2019 and Budapest in 2021.
But, on Sunday, she prevailed in nearly 90 minutes on court after coming from 5-3 down -- and saving two set points -- in the second set of the final of this warm-up event for Wimbledon.
Victory saw Putintseva become just the second unseeded Birmingham champion in the last 10 years, following Beatriz Haddad Maia’s title run of 2022.
“I don’t know what I’m feeling because I wasn’t expecting this at all,” Putintseva said afterwards.
“It’s great and it’s confusing because I’ve always been good on clay, but now all of a sudden, I’m good on grass. I’ll take that! It’s great!
“It was a great game. I started so well, and then Ajla dialled up her level to the highest. She was playing really amazing, not giving me any time to think or to do something. The game was even in the end, and I was a bit more lucky.”
This was Tomljanovic’s first tour-level singles final in five years, with the Australian still waiting for her first title.
Even so it was a heartening week for the Australian, formerly 32 in the world rankings, after she missed most of 2023 following knee surgery and then had an operation to remove ovarian cysts.
Comments
SHARE