Jessica Pegula rallied in the third set to topple defending champion Iga Swiatek and book a title showdown with Coco Gauff at the ATP-WTA Cincinnati Masters.<\/p>\n
World number three Pegula won a “crazy” match against Swiatek 7-5, 4-6, 6-4.<\/p>\n
Gauff powered past giant-killer Sara Bejlek 6-4, 6-1, ending the unseeded Czech’s dream run that included a fourth-round victory over world number one Aryna Sabalenka.<\/p>\n
Their all-American Sunday night final will a men’s title clash featuring American Frances Tiafoe and Arthur Fils of France.<\/p>\n
Fils charged into his first Masters 1000 final with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over French Open runner-up Flavio Cobolli in a match delayed for 45 minutes by rain and lightning.<\/p>\n
Swiatek and Pegula then waited out another rain delay before their match, which was also briefly interrupted two games in.<\/p>\n
“Crazy match today,” Pegula said after needing nearly three hours to subdue Swiatek, who was coming off her first title of 2026 in Toronto last week.<\/p>\n
“A lot of back and forth, a lot of breaks,” she said, “Really windy, kind of odd conditions. I felt like we were playing well and then not playing well.<\/p>\n
“It was really tough to kind of get a gauge on the match.”<\/p>\n
The two rode a rollercoaster of breaks and re-breaks before Pegula took a 5-4 lead in the final set, Swiatek saving three break points before double-faulting on a fourth.<\/p>\n
Pegula quickly closed it out, firing a service winner on match point.<\/p>\n
“I was just really happy with the way I was able to kind of handle just a lot that was going on today,” the 31-year-old American said. “I did a good job of no matter what was happening.”<\/p>\n
The first five games of what evolved into an epic went against the server as Pegula and Swiatek struggled to adjust to the conditions.<\/p>\n
Swiatek blinked first as Pegula held at love for a 4-2 lead, but Swiatek won the next three games before Pegula broke again, finally taking the set when Swiatek smacked a volley into the net on set point.<\/p>\n
They had exchanged two breaks in the second when Swiatek broke in the final game to square the match.<\/p>\n
Swiatek leaves for the US Open starting on August 30 with a good feeling about her game despite the defeat.<\/p>\n
“We made some steps forward in this intensive part of the season,” the six-time Grand Slam champion said. “It was tough to play today with the wind, but we each put pressure on the other. I didn’t feel good in the first set but coming back in the second and using all of my chances was a good change.”<\/p>\n
Gauff, the 2023 Cincinnati champion, got off to a hot start against Bejlek, jumping to a 4-1 lead. Bejlek fought back to 4-4, but the American regained her rhythm to close out the set and run away with the second.<\/p>\n
“I tried not to take my foot off the gas because I knew at any moment she could come back,” Gauff said.<\/p>\n
‘damn good’<\/strong><\/p>\n Tiafoe, runner-up to Jannik Sinner in Cincinnati in 2024, returned to the final with a 7-5, 6-3 victory over fellow American Brandon Nakashima.<\/p>\n Tiafoe saved three set points in the opening set, breaking Nakashima five times in all to earn the win in less than two hours.<\/p>\n “It feels damn good,” Tiafoe said.<\/p>\n The American predicted a “hell of a show” against Fils, whose 68-minute win over seventh-seeded Cobolli made him the youngest French Masters finalist since a 20-year-old Richard Gasquet in Toronto two decades ago.<\/p>\n Fils admitted he had been unsettled by the weather delay.<\/p>\n “You come on court more nervous because it’s a semi-final. The rain arrives, you wait, and when you come back conditions are completely different,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jessica Pegula rallied in the third set to topple defending champion Iga Swiatek and book a title showdown with Coco Gauff at the ATP-WTA Cincinnati Masters. World number three Pegula won a “crazy” match against Swiatek 7-5, 4-6, 6-4. Gauff powered past giant-killer Sara Bejlek 6-4, 6-1, ending the unseeded Czech’s dream run that included …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4931,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4929\/revisions\/4931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}