No. 1 seed Jessica Pegula survived a scare in the Credit One Charleston Open quarterfinals, but recovered from a set and a break down to dethrone defending champion Danielle Collins 1-6, 6-3, 6-0, rattling off the last nine games in a row for a 1-hour, 44-minute victory.
Charleston: Draws | Scores | Order of play
Pegula has won all six of her career meetings with Collins, a perfect record that now stretches over 13 years. The American compatriots first played each other in 2012, when they were both teenagers, in the opening qualifying round of the Midland ITF W100 event. Pegula won that match 6-1, 6-2, setting the tone for a rivalry in which Collins has won just two sets out of 14.
Pegula advances to her fourth semifinal of 2025, and her third in a row in Charleston. Having previously lost at this stage to Belinda Bencic in 2023 and Daria Kasatkina in 2024, she will bid to make her first final against either No. 3 seed Zheng Qinwen or No. 9 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova.
Turning point: In a season Collins has described as a "bonus" after originally intending to retire at the end of 2024, she seemed intent on breaking new ground by blowing Pegula away in a 27-minute first set. She fired 12 winners to Pegula's two, and virtually everything she touched turned to gold: drop shots, returns and her signature power off both wings. It was the most dominant stretch of play Collins had ever put together against Pegula, and she sustained it at the start of the second set to go up 2-0.
The fourth game of the second set was the longest, and most important, of the match. Collins held three game points to go up 3-1, but was unable to take any of them. Pegula seized her opportunity, converting her second break point with a sliced approach and volley putaway.
Errors had begun to creep into Collins' strokes in that game, and after losing it they turned into a cascade. From 2-0 down in the second set, Pegula won 12 of the last 13 games, including the last nine in a row. Collins had committed just nine unforced errors in the first set, but tallied 46 across sets two and three, including seven double faults.
In Pegula's words: "She came out just firing, and I was not ready for that at all," Pegula said in her on-court interview. "Luckily, somehow I was able to dig my heels into that second set and play some good tennis.
"I don't even know if I got fired up. I just felt relieved when she missed a couple of balls - like, thank goodness, give me a chance! I tried to mix it up when I could, throw in some slices and drop shots. Her backhand is one of the best backhands on tour, so I was like, 'Stop hitting to her backhand as much - that would probably help.' And smart serving -- she was returning unbelievable, just hitting winner, winner, winner off my serve and I had to figure out a way to get my placement a little bit better."
