Pegula beats top-ranked Swiatek to reach final

Jessica Pegula beat top-ranked Iga Swiatek to reach the National Bank Open final, breaking serve 11 times in a 6-2, 6-7 (4), 6-4 victory. Pegula, the 29-year-old American seeded fourth, finally broke through in the semi-finals after falling in the round the previous two years. Pegula beat Swiatek a day after fellow American Tommy Paul knocked off top-ranked Carlos Alcaraz in the men’s event in Toronto. U.S. players had not beaten the top-ranked man and woman in the same week since April 2008 in Miami when Serena Williams beat Justine Henin, and Andy Roddick topped Roger Federer.
Both players struggled to hold serve, with Swiatek breaking Pegula eight times. They only won 11 of 30 service games combined. “I was getting frustrated that I wasn’t holding,” Pegula said. “But then at the same time I knew she was having trouble holding as well. I was just like, `I know I’ll get more chances if I can just … hold.’ Basically, it was whoever could kind of consolidate the break.”Rain forced the postponement of the night semifinal between third-seeded Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan and 15th-seeded Liudmila Samsonova of Russia until Sunday. Early Saturday, Rybakina outlasted 10th-seeded Daria Kasatkina of Russia 5-7, 7-5, 7-6 (8) in a match that ended at 2:54 a.m. Pegula, whose parents own the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and NHL’s Buffalo Sabres, has two career victories in 2019 in Washington and 2022 in Guadalajara.
Swiatek leads the tour with 50 match victories. The Polish star won the French Open in June and added her fourth title of the year last week at home in Warsaw. “I kind of knew what I had to do to push her.