Pegula rolls, Tomljanovic battles into Austin semifinals

No. 1 seed Jessica Pegula cruised into the ATX Open semifinals with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Anna Blinkova on Friday.

Blinkova had beaten Pegula in their most recent meeting at Indian Wells last year, but World No. 4 Pegula avenged that defeat with a 58-minute win this time around in Austin. Pegula now leads their head-to-head 4-1.

Austin: Draws | Scores | Order of Play

With the win, Pegula has matched the best performance by an American in the three-year history of the Austin event. Danielle Collins and Katie Volynets also reached the final four in the inaugural 2023 edition, but no American has yet made the Austin final.

Pegula won the first eight points of Friday's match en route to a commanding 4-1 first-set lead. A passing winner gave Blinkova one of the breaks back, but the World No. 74 slammed back-to-back double faults in the next game to hand Pegula a 5-2 advantage. The top seed served out the set from there.

In the second set, Blinkova saved a match point at 5-1, but Pegula regrouped and served out the victory in the following game, easing into her second semifinal of the year. Pegula was the runner-up at Adelaide in January but fell in the final as part of Madison Keys' winning streak Down Under.

Pegula will face Australian wild card Ajla Tomljanovic in Saturday's semifinals. Tomljanovic saved a match point and squeaked out a 7-5, 3-6, 7-6(8) victory over Japanese qualifier Ena Shibahara in Friday's first quarterfinal.

Three-time Grand Slam quarterfinalist Tomljanovic had chances to close out the match much sooner, holding a total of three match points at 5-2 and 6-5 in the third set. But Shibahara, a former Top 5 doubles player who was contesting her first WTA singles quarterfinal, pushed the decider into the tiebreak.

Tomljanovic had three more match points at 6-3 in the tiebreak, but Shibahara roared back again and held her match point on her serve at 7-6. However, Tomljanovic survived that chance, and she finally converted her eighth match point after 2 hours and 33 minutes.

Looking ahead to Saturday's semis, Tomljanovic defeated Pegula in their first two meetings, at ITF Challenger events in 2009 and 2011. But they finally had their first tour-level meeting at last year's United Cup, and Pegula prevailed in that encounter in straight sets.

More to come...