The top two seeds at this week's Adelaide International, Jessica Pegula and Emma Navarro, notched their first wins of the 2025 season on Wednesday to advance to the quarterfinals of the WTA 500 event.
No.1 seed Pegula of the United States, the World No.7 and 2024 US Open finalist, dispatched Greece's Maria Sakkari 6-4, 6-1 in a battle between former Top 3 players. With the win, Pegula nudged ahead 6-5 in their closely-contested head-to-head.
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No.2 seed Navarro, 2024's WTA Most Improved Player of the Year and the World No.8, ousted Ekaterina Alexandrova 7-6(4), 6-4 in just under two hours. Navarro avenged a loss to Alexandrova in their only previous meeting at 2023 Wimbledon.
Pegula prevails: After her first-round bye this week, Pegula needed a couple games to shake off the rust, falling behind 2-0 to Sakkari. But Pegula quickly turned the match in her favor, reeling off five straight games while Sakkari started leaking forehand errors.
Pegula was unable to serve out the first set at 5-2, but she made no mistake in her second opportunity to take the one-set lead, converting her second set point with a passing winner. Pegula won 80 percent of points returning the Sakkari second serve in the first set.
The American eased to victory from there, fending off the only two break points she faced in the second set during a gritty hold for 5-1. Pegula wrapped up victory after 1 hour and 13 minutes, hitting 21 winners to Sakkari's 11.
"It felt really good to get the first win of the year," Pegula said afterwards. "So that’s always comforting. When you go out there, you don’t always know what to expect and where everyone’s at, so it’s always good to get that one out of the way."
Navarro gets on the board: Like her fellow American Pegula, Navarro had a first-round bye and was aiming for her maiden win of 2025. In her only previous match of the year, Navarro suffered a surprise loss to Aussie wild card Kimberly Birrell in Brisbane.
Navarro needed well over an hour to grind out the first set over 27th-ranked Alexandrova, who was seeking her first Top 10 win since she beat Iga Swiatek and Pegula back-to-back at 2024 Miami.
After that, though, Navarro swept to a quick 4-0 lead in the second set, and the American held on from there to kick off her Adelaide campaign and try to collect another title Down Under. Navarro's lone WTA title so far came on Australian soil: last year in Hobart.
