MASON, Ohio (AP) \u2014 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.<\/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\u2019s 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 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 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\u2019s final<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
It will be the first time two Black players have met in an ATP Masters 1000 final. <\/p>\n
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.<\/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\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<\/p>\n
Tiafoe reached the 2024 final in Cincinnati, losing to Jannik Sinner in three sets. <\/p>\n
Fils defeated 10th-ranked Flavio Cobolli, 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\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
___<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full tennis coverage here <\/p>\n
Jeff Wallner, The Associated Press<\/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":868168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-868167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}