For Jessica Pegula, the arrival proved a good deal more comfortable than the journey.
To make the final of the inaugural Guadalajara Open, Pegula had to go through the reigning Wimbledon champion, two US Open winners and a former world No 1. Once there, however, the 28-year-old New Yorker proved far too good for Maria Sakkari, brushing aside the Greek 6-2, 6-4 to claim the second tour-level title of her career.
That breakthrough has been a long time coming. It was three years ago that Pegula won her maiden title in Washington and, unsurprisingly, her frustration at failing to add to her tally had been growing ever more acute.
The American has been a byword for consistency this season, reaching the last eight at the Australian Open, Roland Garros and the US Open, making the Madrid Open final and regularly advancing to the latter stages of other tournaments. Yet her hopes of translating those runs into more tangible reward have been dashed by a serial habit of losing to the eventual champion: Ashleigh Barty in Melbourne, Iga Swiatek in Paris, New York, Miami and San Diego, Ons Jabeur in Madrid, the list goes on.
Not this time, though. Not with Swiatek and Jabeur absent. This was a moment of real opportunity for Pegula, particularly at a WTA 1000 event – the highest tier outside the grand slams and the season-ending WTA Finals – and she was not about to waste it.
Handed the most unfavourable of draws, Pegula made Guadalajara her own, saving match points against Elena Rybakina in her opening match, recovering from early setbacks against Bianca Andreescu and Victoria Azarenka, and posting comfortable wins over Sloane Stephens and Sakkari.
If it was all done in typically phlegmatic fashion, it was also clear how much it meant to Pegula, whose voice wobbled as she used her winners’ speech to dedicate the victory to her mother Kim, who has suffered from ill health this year.
“I kept saying it throughout the year, I really wanted to win a tournament this year,” said Pegula, who rises to a career-high ranking of three. “The only title I won before the Covid era was when I won DC, which is a smaller tournament. That was really a big relief for me.
“I’ve had some tough matches. I’ve lost to a lot of people who ended up winning the tournament. That was kind of annoying. In San Diego [last week], I lost to Iga again in the semi-finals. She won the tournament. I was kind of like,’ Okay, finally when am I going to get my chance?’
“Again, I saw the draw. I was like, ‘Ugh, this is going to be tough.’ I’m just super happy to end my year with a title, with a goal I had this whole year: to win a tournament. To be able to do that in the last event of the year, just the reward of going to play the [WTA] Finals and Billie Jean King Cup is just going to be really fun for me. I’m just excited to end my year on a good note.”
Pegula’s career has been defined by patience. She has twice had to rebuild from scratch after prolonged injury absences, first with a knee problem and then when a labral tear in her hip required surgery. Her fortitude is reflected in her game, which is built on a combination of clean, precise ball-striking, relentless consistency and an outstanding ability to adapt to circumstance, both tactically and mentally.
All those qualities were in evidence in Guadalajara as Pegula calmly set about extinguishing Sakkari’s challenge. She tamed the Greek’s power with the length and accuracy of her groundstrokes, served with steel and intelligence, and varied her approach with regular forays to the net, where her volleying was as lethally incisive as one would expect from a player ranked third in the world in doubles.
It was all too much for Sakkari, who started confidently on serve only to implode in the fifth game, where the first of many woeful forehand errors was sandwiched between a pair of double faults.
Going into the final, the Greek had saved 39 of the 47 break points she faced over the course of the week, but this time there was to be no recovery. Only with the match all but lost did Sakkari finally come alive, unnerving Pegula with a series of blistering forehands to fashion her only break of the match as the American served for the championship.
Sakkari earlier clinched her place in the final by completing a hard-fought 7-5, 6-4 win over Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic, in a match held over from the previous day due to rain. If the final was a match too far, she can nonetheless reflect with satisfaction on a week that continued her love-in with the Mexican fans and saw her claim the final spot for the WTA Finals with a tenacious quarter-final win over Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova.
“It wasn’t ideal,” said Sakkari of having to face Bouzkova and Pegula in the same afternoon. “Obviously the weather didn’t help last night. I was very tired this afternoon, I just didn’t have anything in the tank.
“I tried. I was sad that I couldn’t perform better, but I did my best. She deserves it, I’m not taking away anything from her.”
It was a similarly sobering afternoon for Sakkari’s compatriot Stefanos Tsitsipas, who was beaten 6-4, 6-4 by Holger Rune in the final of the Stockholm Open.
At the European Open in Antwerp, Felix Auger-Aliassime claimed his second title in two weeks with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Sebastian Korda. Auger-Aliassime, who also won in Florence last week, remains in pole position to claim the final qualifying spot for the ATP Finals.
In Naples, Lorenzo Musetti came through an all-Italian final against Matteo Berrettini 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 to claim his second ATP title.