Charleston Open: Top-seeded Jessica Pegula saves four match points, beats Victoria Azarenka to reach semifinals

Charleston: Top-seeded Jessica Pegula saved four match points in a third-set tiebreaker and beat Victoria Azarenka 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(7) on Friday to reach the Charleston Open semifinals.

Danielle Collins, the Miami Open champion, won her 11th straight match with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Elise Mertens.

Pegula squandered four match points of her own, up 5-4 in the final set against Azarenka, a two-time Australian Open champion. But tied 7-7 in the tiebreaker, Azarenka missed wide with Pegula at the net, then pushed a service return long.

The fifth-ranked Pegula also reached the semifinals in Charleston last year but lost to Belinda Bencic.

Pegula will play Daria Kasatkina on Saturday for a spot in the final. The 11th-ranked Kasatkina defeated Jaqueline Cristian 6-7(4), 6-2, 6-3.

Collins had little drama in beating Mertens, reaching the semifinals for her best-ever showing in three Charleston appearances.

Collins will take on seventh-ranked Maria Sakkari on Saturday. Sakkari eliminated 2021 Charleston champion Veronika Kudermetova 6-2, 6-4. It was in Charleston on the green clay that Kasatkina, then 19, won her first WTA Tour title in 2017. She has added five more singles titles since, though none since 2022.

Kasatkina said Cristian’s play and the windy conditions were difficult to contend with early on.

Kasatkina improved to 17-3 at the Charleston Open, making the semifinals for the second straight year. She lost to eventual champion Ons Jabeur a year ago. Agencies

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