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Jessica Pegula and Yue Yuan will play for the Korea Open title on Sunday, in Seoul. On Saturday, both players got through their respective semi-finals. Pegula won against Yanina Wickmayer while Yuan won against Emina Bektas. Against Wickmayer, Pegula needed an hour and 20 minutes to score a 6-4, 6-3 victory.
Pegula faced only three break points in the match and all of these came in the second set. She saved two of these but missing on the third gave her opponent a chance to bring the score closer. However, despite the momentary aberration that’d occurred on her game at that time, Pegula quickly collected herself to see through the match on Wickmayer’s serve in the ninth game of the set.
The American lost 10 points of the 35 played on her first serve. Wickmayer wasn’t too bad when it came to winning first-serve points and won 28 of 46 points played. The 25-year-old was laid low by the five double faults she hit in the match.
Pegula, however, had a better time when it came to winning points on return on her rival’s second serve. The 29-year-old won 12 of 19 points on second-serve return while winning 11 of 19 points on her second serve.
Korea Open: Yue Yuan to battle against Jessica Pegula
Meanwhile, in her semi-final, Yuan went the distance in terms of sets played and even fought from a set down to pocket a 6-7(3), 6-4, 6-2 win over Emina Bektas.
The Chinese player needed two hours and 27 minutes to get the win. At the start of the match, it seemed like Yuan would make quick work of Bektas and thwart an all-American title-round showdown in the South Korean capital.
However, Bektas made her way back in the first set and after getting the break back, won the set in the tie-break. Across the latter two sets, she wasn’t able to make any breakthroughs on Yuan’s serve and the latter rode her momentum all the way to her first-ever final at a WTA tournament.
While Yue Yuan will want to go all out at the Seoul Open, Jessica Pegula will be seeking to win her first title at the Asian Swing this season. Earlier, she’d lost the Tokyo Open in the final to Veronika Kudermetova.