Jessica Pegula wins Montreal in less than an hour

Jessica Pegula cruised to victory over Liudmila Samsonova 6-1, 6-0 on Sunday to win the National Bank Open for her third career WTA Tour victory.

She bested Samsonova in 49 minutes after the 15th-seeded Russian beat third-seeded Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan 1-6, 6-1, 6-2 earlier Sunday in a rain-delayed semifinal.

Pegula hit 16 winners, including five aces, to just three unforced errors in the match. She broke Samsonova five times, and did not lose a point behind her own first serve. She also never faced a break point.

With two Top 5-wins already for the week, a fourth match in less than 36 hours was too much for Samsonova, who was competing in her first WTA 1000 final.

The 15th seed defeated No. 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka and No. 12 seed Belinda Bencic back-to-back on Friday. Her semifinal against No. 3 seed Elena Rybakina was pushed from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon. She beat the Kazakh 1-6, 6-1, 6-3, but lost 11 straight games against Pegula, whom she was 1-2 all-time against entering the final.

“I know obviously, physically she wasn’t feeling her best, but at the same time I played a really clean match,” Pegula said. “Don’t really think I made any unforced errors or anything. I played kind of a perfect match.”

Pegula is the first American to win the event since Serena Williams in 2013. She beat doubles partner Coco Gauff on Friday in the quarterfinals. She then knocked out top-ranked Iga Swiatek 6-2, 6-7 (4), 6-4 on Saturday in the semifinals.

“Beating Coco and beating Iga were two really tough wins back-to-back,” Pegula said. “And being able to do that and then just come out today and play a really clean match was kind of great. I felt like I didn’t have a ton of pressure at any point or I wasn’t worried too much today.”

In five matches entering the final, Samsonova clocked in 10 hours on court. She also went the full distance against Katerina Siniakova in the first round.

“I was believing in myself until 6-1, 3-0,” Samsonova said. “I was trying to do something to stay positive. Then I started to think, ‘Okay, maybe today it’s going to be really hard.’

“It was a tough week for me. So many matches, so many experiences, tough weather, but at the end I made such an incredible result. I’m so happy.”

Samsonova dropped to 4-2 in her career in WTA singles finals. Pegula, who beat doubles partner Coco Gauff and world number one Iga Swiatek on the way to the final, was clearly the more rested of the two players. It did not take much time for the unfortunate scheduling to show its effect on the match.

Pegula won a perfect 100% of her first-serve points. She broke Samsonova five times and never faced a break point while wrapping up the one-sided victory in 49 minutes.

Pegula was in control throughout the match as she went up a double break before closing out the first set on her serve and faced no trouble from Samsonova in the second set.

The American was well aware of the edge she carried into the match and made sure to give credit to Samsonova.

Despite the weather which affected nearly every day of the tournament, Samsonova believes that tournament organizers could have done a better job to avoid her having to play twice on the same day multiple times.

“Everyone saw that on the forecast that at 6 p.m. (Saturday) it would be raining, so I knew that. But, of course, it’s strange that the people don’t care so much about us,” she said. “Because if you know that you must, I think this is my opinion. Make a schedule where it’s possible to play because we already made two matches in one day.

“So you have to try to do the best to not play two matches on another day. This is my opinion.”

Samsonova only had two hours and 15 minutes to rest between matches. In that amount of time, she says she couldn’t recover at all.

As a result, the 24-year-old battled, saying she tried to get something going until she was down 0-3 in the second set, but made error after error, including six double faults.

The American even locked into another gear in the second set, converting three break points without dropping a single game. In total, Pegula won 51 points comparatively to Samsonova’s 21.

This is Pegula’s first WTA title this year and the third of her career. She last won a tournament at the Guadalajara Open in October last year.

Pegula moves on to the Cincinnati Open this week where she looks to continue her successful campaigns on hard courts this season. 

Stay tuned for more breaking tennis coverage and updates.

Featured Image courtesy of National Bank Open

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