Saturday, August 17, 2024

Badosa reaches Cincinnati semifinals

In the day's last semifinal, former world number 2 Paula Badosa faced off with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkvova, who--I learned from Tennis Channel--has more top 10 wins than any woman in the history of the tour to never reach the top 10. Pavlyuchenkova was a junior world number 1, and won junior titles at both the Australian Open and the U.S. Open; she was also a junior finalist at the French Open. 

The Russian veteran, who has twelve WTA singles titles and six doubles titles, reached her highest singles ranking--number 11 in the world--in 2021, the year that she reached the final of the French Open. That year, she also won an Olympic gold medal (with Andrey Rublev) at the Tokyo Olympics.

Pavlyuchenkova's career has been a very good one, though not the career that many expected her to have. Tonight in Cincinnati, she didn't have the answers that she needed to conquer Badosa, who defeated her 6-3, 6-2. The Spanish star will now play Jessica Pegula in the semifinals.

Because of the rain delay, Pegula--who won Toronto right before traveling to Cincinnati--played two matches yesterday, defeating last year's runner-up, Karolina Muchova, and Taylor Townsend. Today, it took her three hours and five match points to take out Leylah Fernandez in a match that featured a lot of weather--it was very windy and very hot. Pegula, however, said that she felt good physically when the match was over. She did feel tired, and a bit sleepy, during the match, she said. "...you know, when you're kind of tired, you get cranky. So I felt like I got super cranky and was just getting annoyed."

The 6th seed has had a tough year. She said that she felt burned out at the beginning of the year, then she became ill in Australia, then she had a coaching change, and then she sustained an injury. "But you know," she said, "that's just the way it goes sometimes. It's nothing new to me. At least early on in my career, I had a lot of difficult stuff to get through anyway, so I think I just trusted that I've been through it before. I've always come out better, I've always come out stronger, and I'll figure it out eventually."

She seems to have figured it out, winning in Toronto and now reaching the semifinals in Cincinnati.


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