Jessica Pegula survived a three-hour, ten-minute showdown against Yulia Putintseva in the Credit One Charleston Open second round. This marks the longest tour-level victory of Pegula’s career. No. 2 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova was forced to withdraw from the tournament due to injury.
Pegula Endures Gruelling Match
No. 1 seed Jessica Pegula opened her Credit One Charleston Open title defence by defeating Yulia Putintseva 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 to reach the third round.
Pegula has a history of winning in three-set matches. She has improved to 7-1 in deciding sets this season and 16-4 since the US Open. This latest win is the longest tour-level win of her career, surpassing her 3:04 victory over Leylah Fernandez in the 2024 Cincinnati quarterfinals.
It also stands as her longest match overall since the 3:21 loss to Liudmila Samsonova in Berlin last year.
“Even though it’s not ideal maybe for tomorrow, but I do feel like getting a three-hour match, I mean, you really break in the lungs,” Pegula said. “Like the aerobic and anaerobic fitness gets broken in quite a bit. And I feel like that actually, if I can get through tomorrow, I think can set me up more further down the line.”
Tricky Conditions on Clay
Pegula had not lost a set to Putintseva in three previous meetings. However, this was their first encounter on clay. Putintseva held two points for a 3-0 third-set lead, but Pegula delivered cool-headed shot selection.
“Not a lot of words,” Pegula said in her on-court interview. “All I could think was, ‘Welcome to clay-court season.’ Oh my God, it’s my first match on clay. Kudos to Yulia. She’s a really tricky opponent, especially on clay. She can be really crafty, use high balls, low balls, slices, drop shots, and I felt like she was just honestly toying with me there for quite a while. I’m not really sure how I found my way back. In the third, there were so many back-and-forth moments as well.”
Looking Ahead
Pegula will next face No. 14 seed Elisabetta Cocciaretto, who defeated lucky loser Yuan Yue 6-0, 7-5. Cocciaretto raced through the first 10 games to lead 6-0, 4-0 before Yuan mounted a late charge to win five games in a row. Down 5-4 in the second set, the Italian steadied herself to take the last three games of the match.
Ekaterina Alexandrova has withdrawn from the tournament ahead of her second-round match against Yuliia Starodubtseva.
“I am really sorry to share that I need to withdraw from Charleston this week,” Alexandrova said. “I sustained a bit of an injury in Miami that need