Pegula digs deep for Wuhan quarterfinal breakthrough
Jessica Pegula extends her streak of epic three-set battles, rallying from the brink against Ekaterina Alexandrova to claim a gritty victory under Wuhan’s closed roof.
In the echoing confines of Wuhan’s Optics Valley International Tennis Centre, Jessica Pegula turned another grueling test into triumph, her season of relentless three-setters reaching a new peak. The American, navigating a calendar packed with elite clashes, erased a daunting 5-2 deficit in the first set to outlast No. 9 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova 7-5, 3-6, 6-3 across two hours and six minutes. This win propels her into the Dongfeng · Voyah Wuhan Open quarterfinals for the first time, a hard-earned milestone amid the tournament’s unfolding drama—track the latest through the Wuhan scores, draws, and order of play.
Rallying from early shadows
Pegula’s opener stumble captured the mental strain of her packed schedule, as Alexandrova’s blistering crosscourt forehands pushed her deep into the baseline on the indoor hard court. The Russian built her lead with aggressive inside-out strikes that exploited the slower bounce under the closed roof, forcing Pegula into defensive scrambles amid the crowd’s rising hum. Yet Pegula regrouped, deploying patient one–two combinations—her serve setting up sharp inside-in forehands—to claw back breaks, her backhand slice disrupting the rhythm and allowing her to hold at 6-5 for the set.
This resilience echoed her broader campaign, where absorbing pressure from top foes has become routine, the air thick with the thud of balls and shuffle of feet heightening every exchange.
“I can’t remember the last time I played two sets,” Pegula said after the match. “But I’ve been competing really hard and I’ve been playing a lot of really good players. It was different conditions today with the roof closed and I think it took us a little while to get adjusted, but then I felt like it was a really high level there for the rest of the match. I’m just excited I was able to get over the finish line.”
Navigating indoor shifts
The second set saw Alexandrova flip the momentum, her flat groundstrokes gaining extra zip in the enclosed space, where low bounces challenged Pegula’s footwork and drew unforced errors in prolonged rallies. Pegula countered with down-the-line backhands to vary the angles, but the Russian broke midway, her serve-plus-one aggression leveling the contest and forcing a decider as the atmosphere tensed. Pegula noted the adjustment to the roof’s acoustics later, how the amplified sounds sharpened her focus during tactical pauses.
Her sixth consecutive three-setter highlighted the physical toll, yet she leaned on underspin returns to neutralize power, turning the surface’s quirks into opportunities that played to her topspin strengths over Alexandrova’s penetrating hits.
Seizing the decider’s edge
In the third, Pegula broke early at 2-1 with a piercing inside-out forehand that hugged the line, then consolidated using deep crosscourt returns to keep the pressure mounted. Alexandrova fought back, but Pegula’s consistent depth and slice variations off the return wore her down, her body language evolving from taut to commanding as the crowd’s energy surged. This victory evens their head-to-head at 3-3, marking Pegula’s first win over the Russian beyond clay, a crucial adaptation for hard-court momentum.
Now facing the winner of Iva Jovic and Katerina Siniakova, Pegula carries this blend of endurance and precision forward, her season’s arc hinting at deeper runs and the relief of breakthroughs yet to come.
