Jessica Pegula continued to hold the upper hand in her head-to-head with Emma Navarro on Monday night, defeating her fellow American 7-5, 6-2 in 1 hour and 41 minutes to reach the Cincinnati Round of 16.<\/p>\n
Cincinnati:\u00a0Scores<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Order of play<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Draws<\/a><\/p>\n Pegula has now won all four of her WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz meetings against Navarro, including three at WTA 1000 events. She owns 14 career match wins at the Cincinnati Open — trailing only her totals in Miami (21) and Canada (20) among WTA 1000 tournaments.<\/p>\n “It was such a nice atmosphere when we walked out here, so thanks everyone for coming out to support both of us,” Pegula said in her on-court interview. “It’s always tough playing another American, but at least one of us gets to go through. I’m happy with today’s match. It was a long day with the rain, but I think everyone — at least for the day session — definitely stayed.”<\/p>\n Serena and Venus Williams’ doubles reunion, scheduled immediately after Pegula and Navarro’s all-American derby, helped elevate the atmosphere on Grandstand. But those in attendance were rewarded with a far more competitive contest than the scoreline suggests ahead of that highly anticipated nightcap.<\/p>\n Kostyuk, Stearns withstand late rally to spoil Williams sisters’ reunion in Cincinnati<\/p>\n Final rundown<\/p>\n After Pegula broke for 2-1, she looked poised to take control of the first set, but Navarro halted that momentum by firing a forehand return winner to break back for 2-2.<\/p>\n Navarro’s ball-striking kept her in touch throughout the opening set as the compatriots traded holds and saved bundles of break points. At 5-all, Navarro fought off two break points from 0-40 down, but Pegula blasted a backhand winner to winner to convert the third for 6-5.<\/p>\n Pegula then held in her final service game to take the set a minute shy of the one-hour mark.<\/p>\n The second set’s wider margin reflected Pegula’s ability to raise her level, as Navarro’s remained steady. Still, the No. 28 seed will surely want a few break-point chances back — she converted just 2 of 9.<\/p>\n Pegula, meanwhile, broke to begin the set and raced to a 4-0 lead. Navarro mounted one last push, converting her third break point at the end of a rollercoaster game to cut the deficit to 4-2, but Pegula broke again immediately to earn the chance to serve for the match.<\/p>\n “I knew there were going to be a lot of long points. She makes you run a lot and works the points really well herself,” Pegula said to reporters. “She was serving much better. She changed her serve a little bit, so I had to adjust to that. I’m just happy to get through it. It was a tough match.”<\/p>\n Pegula saved one final break point, ripped a backhand winner to bring up match point and sealed the win with her fourth ace, sending the No. 3 seed through to the fourth round.<\/p>\n What’s next<\/p>\n No. 15 seed Sorana Cirstea awaits. Pegula leads the head-to-head 2-1 and has won their last two meetings, though their most recent came five years ago on the Madrid clay. They’ve split two hard-court matches in Midland, played back in 2011 and 2015.<\/p>\n And how’s this for a stat: Since 1990, only three players have earned more Tier I\/WTA 1000 match wins after turning 30 than Pegula (56, tied with Cirstea) — Serena Williams, Venus Williams and Victoria Azarenka.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jessica Pegula continued to hold the upper hand in her head-to-head with Emma Navarro on Monday night, defeating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428,1959],"class_list":["post-817270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817270","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=817270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}