\n\tMASON, Ohio: Jessica Pegula beat defending champion Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff defeated Sara Bejlek on Saturday to set up the first all-American women\u2019s final at the Cincinnati Open in 56 years.
Pegula rallied from down a break in the third set to get past Swiatek, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4, for her tour-leading 45th win this year. It was the 300th tour-level victory of Pegula\u2019s career, and it snapped Swiatek\u2019s 10-match winning streak.
Pegula\u2019s best finish in Cincinnati came in 2024, when she lost to Aryna Sabalenka in the final.
Gauff, the 2023 champion, beat Bejlek, 6-4, 6-1. The 20-year-old Czech upset top seed Aryna Sabalenka and Madison Keys en route to the semis.
The last time two American women played in the Cincinnati final was in 1970, when Rosie Casals beat Nancy Richey.
\u201cI\u2019m always rooting for American tennis,\u201d Pegula said. \u201cI like to play someone that I get along with and have a lot of respect for, like Coco. I didn\u2019t realize it was so long since we\u2019ve had a double American final. The crowd can just go out there and enjoy the match.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIt was a really tough match\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWorld number three Pegula and seventh seed Swiatek traded breaks early in the opening set before rain briefly interrupted play with the score level at 1-1. Pegula returned with purpose, breaking for a 3-2 lead and following it with a love hold for 4-2.
Swiatek clawed back, breaking to level at 4-4 before moving ahead. \u200cBut with the \u200cset locked at 5-5, Pegula capitalized on \u200ba \u200cSwiatek \u2060double \u200bfault to \u2060break for 6-5 before the Pole missed a return and sent an overhead smash into the net to hand Pegula the opener. In the second set Swiatek was more aggressive, breaking in the sixth game to take a 4-2 lead.
Pegula broke back and managed to level the contest, but the former world number one sealed the set \u2060in the 10th game when Pegula missed a \u200cforehand return.
Pegula refused to fade \u200cafter Swiatek moved 3-1 ahead in the \u200bdecider. The American levelled at 4-4, \u200cearned the decisive break in the next game and served \u200cout victory after two hours and 47 minutes.
\u201cIt was a really tough match. She (Swiatek) is in great form. To beat someone who is such a great athlete like Iga in the semis and to make it to another \u200c1000 final, it\u2019s awesome,\u201d Pegula said.<\/p>\n
\n\tTiafoe and Fils to meet in men\u2019s final
On the men\u2019s side, Frances Tiafoe defeated fellow American Brandon Nakashima, 7-5, 6-3, to set up a final against Arthur Fils of France.
It will be the first time two Black players have met in an ATP Masters 1000 final.
Sunday\u2019s winner will be the third Black man to win a Masters 1000 title, joining Ben Shelton, who won Canada twice, and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who won Paris in 2008 and Canada in 2014.
\u201cIt\u2019s awesome for, you know, for a bunch of kids looking up to us and want to be in our position,\u201d Tiafoe said. \u201cThat\u2019s what it\u2019s about. It\u2019s always nice to be a part of history. Hopefully we can have more big finals like this having people of color, and I\u2019m super pumped about it.\u201d
Tiafoe reached the 2024 final in Cincinnati, losing to Jannik Sinner in three sets.<\/p>\n
\n\tFils prevail<\/p>\n
\n\tFils defeated 10th-ranked Flavio Cobolli, 6-3, 6-4, to become the second French player to reach the Cincinnati final, joining Guy Forget in 1991.
The 22-year-old beat Tiafoe in three sets last year in Miami, in their only prior meeting.
\u201cFrances is Frances,\u201d Fils said. \u201cI mean, whenever he has to show up on the big stage that\u2019s where he plays his best. It\u2019s going to be a nice final to play against an American, so the crowd\u2019s going to be against me, but I think I\u2019m going to enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tFils admitted he had been unsettled by the weather delay.
\u201cYou come on court more nervous because it\u2019s a semifinal. The rain arrives, you wait, and when you come back conditions are completely different,\u201d he said.
\u201cIt was tough but I\u2019m happy with how I dealt with it.
\u201cMy 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\u2019s what we are doing here.
\u201cI\u2019m pretty happy with the performance today, with the whole week, but I want to go further.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tCobolli gained an early edge with a break for 2-1 but immediately dropped his own serve to love.
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.
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.
\u201cI started out slow but the momentum began to change from 4-3 in the first set when I won some tough rallies,\u201d Fils said. \u201cThe momentum started going my way and I felt much better on serve.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MASON, Ohio: Jessica Pegula beat defending champion Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff defeated Sara Bejlek on Saturday to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[185],"class_list":["post-55824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-coco-gauff","tag-coco-gauff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55824","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=55824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}