Jessica Pegula and fellow American Hailey Baptiste met for the third time Wednesday at the Dongfeng \u00b7 Voyah Wuhan Open, their first matchup in more than three years.<\/p>\n
Wuhan: Scores<\/a> | Draws<\/a> | Order of play<\/a><\/p>\n Pegula entered seeking her third win in as many meetings with the 23-year-old Baptiste, who was aiming to break through for her first victory in the head-to-head series.<\/p>\n And while it took nearly three hours and seven match points, experience ultimately prevailed. The No. 6 seed held off Baptiste in a gripping three-set battle, winning 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (6) in 2 hours and 55 minutes to reach the third round in Wuhan for the second consecutive year.<\/p>\n Next up for Pegula is No. 9 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova, who defeated another American, Ann Li, in the second round.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t really know what to say about that match,\u201d Pegula said afterward. \u201cIt\u2019s been brutal. You know, I had match points, and then she started playing well. I think I just got a little tentative, and that\u2019s all it takes sometimes for someone to come back. So, I mean, I\u2019m really proud of myself for how I held it together, because I think I easily could\u2019ve just collapsed. But I held tough, so yeah, that was a wild ride.\u201d<\/p>\n Considering how it ended, it makes the beginning of the match felt almost surreal.<\/p>\n Pegula came out firing in her first match since her heartbreaking semifinal loss to Linda Noskova in Beijing last week, looking sharp and focused on the road ahead.<\/p>\n She broke Baptiste in the opening game, jumping to a 0-40 lead before converting. Pegula then consolidated the break with a gritty hold, saving three break points and surviving four deuces to go up 2-0.<\/p>\n After extending her lead to 4-1, Baptiste clawed back by winning two straight games. But Pegula responded with a love hold to close out the first set in 50 minutes.<\/p>\n Momentum shifted in the second set, as Baptiste broke Pegula twice on her way to leads of 3-0 and 5-2. Though Pegula broke back to narrow the gap to 5-4 — prompting visible frustration from Baptiste \u2013 the younger American regrouped and converted her second set point after fending off five game points, sealing the set in 52 minutes.<\/p>\n With the heat rule coming into effect for the second straight day in Wuhan, both players declined the option of a 10-minute break between the second and third sets and chose to play on.<\/p>\n Pegula dominated for much of the decider, racing out to a 5-2 lead. Despite the wear and tear of recent matches — many of the three-set variety — she looked determined to rebound from a mistake-laden finish to the second set.<\/p>\n But the finish was anything but routine. Pegula squandered five match points as Baptiste mounted a last-ditch rally, leveling the set at 5-all. Pegula then earned a break point to regain control but couldn\u2019t convert, allowing Baptiste to surge ahead 6-5, suddenly a game away from victory.<\/p>\n In the end, Pegula held her nerve. She held serve convincingly to force a third-set tiebreak, then after dropping another match point, converted her seventh match point to secure the win after a 74-minute third set.<\/p>\n It was the ultimate definition of survive and advance.<\/p>\n The match marked Pegula\u2019s fifth consecutive three-setter, and yet none — not even the Noskova loss — matched the drama of this one.<\/p>\n She summed it up with a single word, delivered straight to the camera lens:<\/p>\n \u201cWow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jessica Pegula and fellow American Hailey Baptiste met for the third time Wednesday at the Dongfeng \u00b7 Voyah…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-197224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}