BERLIN – American tennis player Jessica Pegula, seeded number three and current champion, was eliminated in the round of 16 of the Berlin Open on Wednesday. She fell to Liudmila Samsonova, champion in 2021, in a marathon match that lasted three hours and 21 minutes, with a score of 6-7(8), 7-5 and 7-6(5).
Samsonova, from Russia, who will face Magdalena Frech from Poland or Amanda Anisimova from the United States in the next round, took advantage of her powerful serve for much of the match, achieving 18 aces compared to Pegula’s two.
Samsonova had several opportunities to close out the first set, but wasted four set points with scores of 5-4 and 6-5. Pegula took advantage of the situation and won the set in the tiebreak.
Both players held their serves until Samsonova broke her opponent at 5-5 in the second set, and then held her serve to tie the score.
Pegula suffered a break at 2-2 and, despite having three break opportunities in the next game, fell behind 4-2.
However, he managed to win the following three games and even had two match points with a 5-4 in his favor.
Samsonova held firm to force another tiebreak and secured her place in the quarterfinals on her first match point.
Ons Jabeur from Tunisia, who entered the main draw as a “lucky loser”, secured her place in the quarterfinals after defeating Jasmine Paolini, world number five, with a score of 6-1 and 6-3.
The two-time Wimbledon finalist and winner in Berlin in 2022, achieved her first victory against a top-five player in almost two years and demonstrated her good performance on grass, less than two weeks before the third Grand Slam of the year in London.
Furthermore, it was the first time since February that Jabeur, ranked 61st, won consecutive matches in the main draw of a tournament.
In the quarterfinals, they will face Marketa Vondrousova or Diana Shnaider from Russia.
Paula Badosa, eighth seed from Spain, secured her place in the quarterfinals with a 7-6(2) and 6-3 victory over Emma Navarro of the United States.
Badosa achieved two breaks in the first set to go 5-2 up, but quickly lost that advantage, as Navarro won four games in a row to tie and force a tiebreak.
The Spaniard recovered in time to win the tiebreak 7-2.
Both players held their serve in the second set until Badosa managed a break to go up 5-3 and close out the match on her first match point.
