MATCH POINTS
Today's final will be the first encounter between No.8 seed Pauline Parmentier and qualifier Jessica Pegula.
Parmentier owns a perfect 3-0 record in finals, having defeated Victoria Azarenka to win Tashkent 2007, Lucie Hradecka to win Bad Gastein 2008 and Polona Hercog to win Istanbul this April.
Pegula will be playing her maiden final; previously, the American had reached just one WTA Tour semifinal, at Washington in 2016. Her quarterfinal victory at that tournament over World No.14 Samantha Stosur is her career-best win; Pegula's three Top 100 wins this week so far bring her overall total to 11.
Going into Istanbul in April, Parmentier's 2018 win-loss record was a paltry 2-15. Since then, she is 17-12, having broken her decade-long title drought and now having reached two finals in one year for the first time. Parmentier is one of two French titlists this season, the other being Alizé Cornet in Gstaad.
World No.227 Pegula is the lowest-ranked player to reach a final this season, and the lowest-ranked since World No.254 Barbora Krejcikova was runner-up in Nurnberg last year. The 24-year-old has cracked the Top 200 twice in her career but was set back by injuries both times: as a 19-year-old, she reached a career high of No.123 in 2013, but was sidelined for almost the entire 2014 season and had to start again as an unranked player. By July 2016 Pegula had made it back to No.135, but an eight-month hiatus in 2017 meant that she had sunk back down to No.870 last October. This week's result will put Pegula back in the Top 150, and a title would set a new career high for her.
Pegula is also the third qualifier to reach a final in 2018, following Aliaksandra Sasnovich in Brisbane and Amanda Anisimova in Hiroshima (lucky loser Olga Danilovic was also champion at the Moscow River Cup). The last qualifier to win a WTA title was Zarina Diyas in Tokyo last year.
ORDER OF PLAY
COURT BANQUE NATIONALE (starts 11am)
Pauline PARMENTIER (FRA) [8] vs [Q] Jessica PEGULA (USA)
Asia MUHAMMAD (USA) / Maria SANCHEZ (USA) vs Darija JURAK (CRO) / Xenia KNOLL (SUI) [2]
