One tiebreak, nine match points--top seed Pegula wins a "really crazy match"

Jessica Pegula (photo by Daniel Ward)

Not to be outdone by Dasha Kasatkina and Jaqueline Cristian, number 1 seed Jessica Pegula and number 12 seed Victoria Azarenka put on their own thrill show in the second quarterfinal of the day at the Credit One Charleston Open. The match, which lasted two hours and 36 minutes, brought out the best in both players, and the third set tiebreak brought fans to the edges of their seats.

Victoria Azarenka (photo by Daniel Ward)

Pegula took the first set 6-4, Azarenka took the second, 6-3. The third set was as tense as a set could be, and after breaking Azarenka toward the end, Pegula went up 5-3 and served for the match. But Azarenka saved four match points, then made it 5-all. Pegula then had a quick, easy hold, then Azarenka took the match to a nerve-wracking tiebreak. This time, it was Pegula who saved four match points, then won the tiebreak 9-7.

After the match, Pegula said that "That was a really crazy match--really, really crazy....to be honest, I wasn't feeling that great. It was really windy. I was like, ugh, I'm tight. It's windy. It's not helping. Like you don't want to make stupid errors, but you want to still kind of like play your game, and the wind amplifies the nerves like ten times...."

Pegula went on to say that she was trying not to feel like she had given up. "I think I was just trying to stay calm and be like, okay, let's just see what happens, and luckily that was good enough today." The top seed summed it all up best, however, when she signed the Tennis Channel camera WTF?

photo by Daniel Ward