{"id":55847,"date":"2026-08-23T04:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T04:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/55847\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T04:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T04:42:08","slug":"jessica-pegula-and-coco-gauff-to-meet-in-first-all-american-cincinnati-womens-final-in-56-years-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/55847\/","title":{"rendered":"Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff to meet in first all-American Cincinnati women’s final in 56 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

MASON, Ohio (AP) \u2014 Jessica Pegula<\/a> beat defending champion Iga Swiatek<\/a> and Coco Gauff<\/a> defeated Sara Bejlek<\/a> on Saturday to set up the first all-American women’s final at the Cincinnati Open in 56 years.<\/p>\n

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’s career, and it snapped Swiatek\u2019s 10-match winning streak.<\/p>\n

Pegula\u2019s best finish in Cincinnati came in 2024, when she lost to Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> in the final.<\/p>\n

Gauff, the 2023 champion, beat Bejlek, 6-4, 6-1. The 20-year-old Czech upset top seed Aryna Sabalenka and Madison Keys<\/a> en route to the semis.<\/p>\n

The last time two American women played in the Cincinnati final was in 1970, when Rosie Casals beat Nancy Richey.<\/p>\n

\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

Tiafoe and Fils to meet in men’s final<\/p>\n

On the men’s side, Frances Tiafoe<\/a> defeated fellow American Brandon Nakashima, 7-5, 6-3, to set up a final against Arthur Fils<\/a> of France<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It will be the first time two Black players have met in an ATP<\/a> Masters 1000 final. <\/p>\n

Sunday’s winner will be the third Black man to win a Masters 1000 title, joining Ben Shelton<\/a>, who won Canada twice, and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who won Paris in 2008 and Canada in 2014.<\/p>\n

\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’s what it’s about. It’s 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<\/p>\n

Tiafoe reached the 2024 final in Cincinnati, losing to Jannik Sinner<\/a> in three sets. <\/p>\n

Fils defeated 10th-ranked Flavio Cobolli<\/a>, 6-3, 6-4, on Saturday. He became the second French player to reach the Cincinnati final, joining Guy Forget in 1991.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old beat Tiafoe in three sets last year in Miami, in their only prior meeting. <\/p>\n

\u201cFrances is Frances,\u201d Fils said. \u201cI mean, whenever he has to show up on the big stage that’s 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

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full tennis coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MASON, Ohio (AP) \u2014 Jessica Pegula beat defending champion Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff defeated Sara Bejlek on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[256,217,19696,419,185,18995,115,1550,247,219,183,751,2490,282],"class_list":["post-55847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-aryna-sabalenka","tag-arthur-fils","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-atp-cincinnati-open-08-11-2026","tag-ben-shelton","tag-coco-gauff","tag-event_recap","tag-france","tag-frances-tiafoe","tag-iga-swiatek","tag-jannik-sinner","tag-jessica-pegula","tag-madison-keys","tag-sara-bejlek","tag-wta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55847","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=55847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}