Italy won both singles ties in straight sets, meaning there was no need for a decisive doubles match. The No. 8-ranked Paolini beat seventh-ranked Pegula 6-4, 6-2 after No. 91 Elisabetta Cocciaretto<\/a> won 6-4, 6-4 against Emma Navarro<\/a>, breaking her serve three times at the Shenzhen Bay Sports Center Arena in Shenzhen, China.<\/p>\n Paolini broke Pegula’s serve with a two-handed backhand down the line to take the first set. But with Paolini serving for the match at 5-1, she wavered a little. Pegula saved three match points, and then two unforced errors from Paolini allowed Pegula to break back to 5-2 down.<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks A strong looping forehand gave Paolini — the runner-up at the French Open and Wimbledon last year — a fourth match point, and she took it, clinching victory when Pegula’s two-handed backhand clipped the net and landed wide.<\/p>\n Paolini raised her arms in the air then walked over to hug her teammates. All the staff members joined them on the court as they danced in a circle before celebrating with blue-shirted, flag-waving Italy fans.<\/p>\n “It’s an unbelievable feeling,” Paolini said. “Today was a really tough match. We’re really happy and proud of ourselves, of our team. It’s a great day for Italy.”<\/p>\n Pegula and Navarro each came from a set down to defeat Britain and reach the final.<\/p>\n But not this time.<\/p>\n Italy boasted a doubles pairing of Olympic champions Paolini and Sara Errani<\/a>, who also won the French Open doubles together this year. They would have faced Pegula and top-ranked doubles player Taylor Townsend<\/a> in what might have been an exciting trophy decider.<\/p>\n The BJK Cup was formerly known as the Fed Cup. The United States is the most successful team as an 18-time winner but has not held the title since 2017.<\/p>\n “Obviously we are disappointed with how it went,” U.S. captain Lindsay Davenport said. “We felt like we had a great opportunity, but man, both of those ladies played great tennis. Congratulations to them.<\/p>\n “We’ll just keep trying. We’ll get another chance hopefully next year to be back here.”<\/p>\n Italy was contesting its third straight final and clinched its sixth title. The Americans’ previous final came in 2018.<\/p>\n The Associated Press and PA contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sep 21, 2025, 09:46 AM ET Jasmine Paolini beat Jessica Pegula on the fourth match point as defending…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-172238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/r1548840_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&w=130&h=130&scale=crop&location=center.jpeg\")
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