Jessica Pegula’s impressive third-round victory over Emma Raducanu at the China Open came back to haunt her. The American saved three match points to beat Raducanu 3-6 7-6(9) 6-0 on Monday, but Pegula was the one who blew three match points in Saturday’s semi-final.
The No. 5 seed served for the match against Linda Noskova at 6-5 in the final set and had three match points on her serve but she got broken and they went to a tiebreak, where Noskova won 6-3 1-6 7-6(6).
Pegula stormed back to force a decider after losing the first set. And it turned out to be a marathon third set, starting with four consecutive breaks of serve.
The American broke again to serve for the match at 6-5, at which point they’d already been playing the final set for over an hour. She led 40-15 but Noskova got to deuce, and Pegula couldn’t capitalise on her third match point as the Czech star broke to force a tiebreak.
Pegula had an early double mini-break lead at 3-1 in the tiebreak, but she sent an overhead well long and then made another mistake to find herself at 3-3.
It was Noskova’s turn to feel the pressure after taking a mini-break lead, as she double faulted to relinquish her advantage.
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