CINCINNATI, United States \u2014 Jessica Pegula rallied from a break down in the final set to topple defending champion Iga Swiatek 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 on Saturday and reach the final of the ATP-WTA Cincinnati Masters.<\/p>\n
World number three Pegula needed nearly three hours to dethrone Swiatek as the duo rode a rollercoaster of breaks and re-breaks before the 31-year-old American took a 5-4 lead in the final set after Swiatek saved three break points but double-faulted on a fourth.<\/p>\n
Pegula quickly closed it out, firing a service winner on match point to reach Sunday’s championship match in the US Open tune-up.<\/p>\n
Pegula will face either unseeded Czech Sara Bejlek or fourth-ranked Coco Gauff in Sunday’s final.<\/p>\n
Bejlek, 20, went into their Saturday night semi-final seeking another big upset, having knocked off world number one Aryna Sabalenka in the fourth round.<\/p>\n
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By signing up with an email address, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the Terms of Service<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n France’s Arthur Fils charged into the men’s final, dispatching French Open runner-up Flavio Cobolli 6-3, 6-4 in a match delayed for 45 minutes by rain and lightning.<\/p>\n Swiatek and Pegula then waited out another rain delay before their match, which was also briefly interrupted two games in.<\/p>\n The first five games of what evolved into an epic went against the server as Pegula and Swiatek struggled to adjust to the conditions.<\/p>\n Swiatek blinked first as Pegula held at love for a 4-2 lead, but Swiatek won the next three games before Pegula broke again for a 6-5 lead — taking the set when Swiatek smacked a volley into the net on set point.<\/p>\n They had exchanged two breaks in the second when Swiatek grabbed a lifeline and broke in the final game to square the match.<\/p>\n Swiatek will drop from fifth to eighth in the world after failing to defend her title, but it’s been a productive August for the former world number one who claimed her first title of the year in Toronto this month.<\/p>\n In men’s action 22-year-old Fils booked his first ever Masters 1000 final, where he’ll face the winner of the all-American semi-final between Brandon Nakashima and Frances Tiafoe.<\/p>\n Fils’s 68-minute win over seventh-seeded Cobolli made him the youngest French Masters finalist since a 20-year-old Richard Gasquet in Toronto two decades ago.<\/p>\n Fils admitted he had been unsettled by the weather delay.<\/p>\n “You come on court more nervous because it’s a semi-final. The rain arrives, you wait, and when you come back conditions are completely different,” he said.<\/p>\n “It was tough but I’m happy with how I dealt with it.<\/p>\n “My goal since the start of the season was to try to go deep in those big tournaments, try to play on the biggest stadium. That’s what we are doing here.<\/p>\n “I’m pretty happy with the performance today, with the whole week, but I want to go further.”<\/p>\n Tough rallies <\/p>\n Cobolli gained an early edge with a break for 2-1 but immediately dropped his own serve to love.<\/p>\n The Italian went down for a second time, with his opponent catching the corner to take a 5-3 lead before serving out the set after 25 minutes.<\/p>\n Fils broke to start the second set as his intensity increased, and he closed out the win with a stinging forehand winner to the corner past Cobolli.<\/p>\n “I started out slow but the momentum began to change from 4-3 in the first set when I won some tough rallies,” Fils said. “The momentum started going my way and I felt much better on serve.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI, United States \u2014 Jessica Pegula rallied from a break down in the final set to topple defending…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[256,217,19719,2575,1936,904,883,185,4089,1550,207,247,183,3746,6191,8715,20887,666,2490,2430,20885,28,463,20886],"class_list":["post-55787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jessica-pegula","tag-arthur-fils","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-atp-wta-cincinnati-masters","tag-brandon-nakashima","tag-break-points","tag-championship-match","tag-cincinnati","tag-coco-gauff","tag-flavio-cobolli","tag-frances-tiafoe","tag-french-open","tag-iga-swiatek","tag-jessica-pegula","tag-masters-1000","tag-mens-final","tag-rain-delay","tag-rally","tag-richard-gasquet","tag-sara-bejlek","tag-semi-final","tag-service-winner","tag-tennis","tag-us-open","tag-womens-final"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}