With Jessica Pegula having come from 2-0 down to take a 4-2 lead late in the third set of her semifinal against compatriot Iva Jovic on Friday, Tennis Channel commentator Brett Haber put it best:<\/p>\n
\u201cJust another day at the three-set office.\u201d<\/p>\n
Charleston:\u00a0Scores<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Draws<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Order of play<\/a><\/p>\n That about sums up Pegula\u2019s week in Charleston, where she has won four straight three-setters, culminating in Saturday\u2019s 6-4, 5-7, 6-3 win over Jovic in 2 hours and 35 minutes. The victory sends her to her second consecutive Charleston final as she looks to defend her title against first-time finalist Yulia Starodubtseva.<\/p>\n The result also improves her record to 10-1 in three-set matches this season and gives her a 23rd win of 2026, tying her with Aryna Sabalenka for the most at the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz level this year.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes I\u2019m so tired and I don\u2019t know, it kind of just lets me play tennis instead of getting frustrated or worried about things,\u201d Pegula said in her on-court interview. \u201cThat sounds really bad. It sounds like I\u2019m being really negative. But sometimes I give into my emotions a bit and it lets me play a little more free.<\/p>\n \u201cBut yeah, I kept battling out there. It was tough. I had to make a lot of adjustments. It wasn\u2019t pretty at times, but I think it just came down to competing and maybe playing the bigger points a little bit better.\u201d<\/p>\n In a match full of momentum swings and missed chances on both sides — Jovic and Pegula went a combined 8-of-30 on break points — it did ultimately come down to who could handle the biggest moments. On this day, Pegula\u2019s experience won out over her mini-me, so to speak, in Jovic.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to fall into the trap of saying an early point or game \u201cset the tone,\u201d but here it applies. After a love hold to open the match, Jovic broke at her first opportunity for 2-0 as part of a quick start in which she won nine of the first 10 points.<\/p>\n What followed was pure mayhem. In the third game, Jovic got dragged into a service game that lasted just over 17 minutes and featured seven Pegula break points. Time after time, Jovic escaped — saving one with a forehand winner, another with a mighty backhand and a third with savvy net play. She saved them all and finally consolidated the break for 3-0 after a 22-point game.<\/p>\n But despite the hold, the momentum had begun to tilt.<\/p>\n Pegula held at love in the next game to get on the board at 3-1, the first of three straight games she won to level at 3-3. After Jovic escaped with another hold for 4-3, Pegula faced break point in a three-deuce game but held for 4-4, a pivotal moment that sparked another three-game run to take the first set in 61 minutes after trailing 3-0.<\/p>\n The second set was far more straightforward. After 16 combined break points in the opener, neither player generated one through the first 11 games of the second. Serving to force a tiebreak, Pegula faced the first three break points of the set. She saved two, but Jovic converted the third to force a decider.<\/p>\n When Jovic jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the third, it looked as if Pegula\u2019s nearly seven and a half hours spent on court entering Saturday had finally caught up with her. Instead, she dug in. A backhand pass to start the next game ignited an emphatic response, and she broke at love for 2-1.<\/p>\n For the third time in the match, Pegula went on a run, winning four straight games to flip the deficit into a 4-2 lead. After a pair of holds, she earned one final break in the last game. Jovic battled to the end, saving two match points, but Pegula wasn\u2019t to be denied. She converted the third to seal the win and keep her title defense alive for another day.<\/p>\n Next up is a first meeting with Starodubtseva with a trophy on the line. For Pegula, it would be the 11th singles title of her career. For Starodubtseva, who began the week as the World No. 89 and only received automatic main-draw entry after a late withdrawal, it would be her first WTA title in her first tour-level final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Jessica Pegula having come from 2-0 down to take a 4-2 lead late in the third set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428,1959],"class_list":{"0":"post-564922","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564922","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=564922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}