By Amy Tennery<\/p>\n
NEW YORK, Sept 2 (Reuters) \u2013 World number three Jessica Pegula produced a finely tuned performance to sprint through a second-round \u200bmeeting with\u00a0fellow American Sofia Kenin, winning 6-3 \u200c6-1 at the U.S. Open on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
In the first match of the day on Arthur Ashe Stadium, Pegula dropped only three of her first-serve points and never faced a \u200cbreak \u200bpoint. The 2024 runner-up, who is \u2060seeking her maiden \u2060major title as well as top spot in the rankings, booked a meeting\u00a0with 2021 finalist Leylah Fernandez.<\/p>\n
Wildcard Kenin has struggled as injuries and illness \u200bsaw her tumble down the rankings after her breakthrough 2020 Australian Open win and she was \u2060never\u00a0able to get a foothold \u2060in the match as she suffered \u200byet another early exit from her domestic major.<\/p>\n
Kenin handed \u200bher opponent the break with a double fault \u200cin the opening game and Pegula broke her again on set point with a fine forehand before slamming her foot down on the gas.<\/p>\n
The runner-up \u2060at the Cincinnati tune-up tournament was near flawless as she won the first five games of the second set, \u2060producing just \u200ctwo unforced errors before closing it \u2060out with an unreturnable serve.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going for \u200bmy \u200cspots, I\u2019m going pretty big on \u200bsecond serves,\u201d \u2060said Pegula, adding that she had put effort into adding more firepower to her serve. \u201cReally excited when I can practise something and it pays off in a match.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New YorkEditing \u200bby Toby Davis)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Amy Tennery NEW YORK, Sept 2 (Reuters) \u2013 World number three Jessica Pegula produced a finely tuned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":877723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-877722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877722","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=877722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/877723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}