Coco Gauff, Maria Sakkari advance to D.C. Open women’s final

Semifinal Saturday at the D.C. Open produced two top 10 women’s finalists who will battle it out in Rock Creek Park for the biggest title of their career.

Seven-seed Maria Sakkari continued her quick, maiden tour of the District, controlling the match but needing a third set to beat fourth-ranked and top-seeded Jessica Pegula, 6-3, 4-6, 6-2. She’ll face rising American star Coco Gauff on Sunday afternoon after the world No. 7 defeated defending champion Liudmila Samsonova, 6-3, 6-3, as the two vie for their first WTA 500 title.

With paper fans fluttering in the crowd throughout the warmest day of the tournament, the world No. 9 Sakkari showed no signs of fatigue after winning her third match in a little more than 24 hours.

“I’m playing good tennis again,” Sakkari said. “I’m aggressive. That’s something that I lost a little bit this year.”

After an opening-round bye, her first match Thursday was postponed due to rain, forcing her and most of the field into a double-dip on Friday. Amidst that time crunch, Sakkari has only dropped one set in her D.C. debut and will play in the first hard-court final of her career.

“I’ll be really honest with you: I didn’t expect my tennis to be that good this week,” Sakkari said. “I was playing really good back home, but I didn’t expect to make the final here.”

Sakkari spread the ball around the court like a painter, wielding her forehand with touch, particularly in the first and third sets. Along with her service game dominance, it was an unbeatable tandem.

“Maria played very good right from the start,” Pegula said. “She was playing so aggressive and really not making a lot of errors. Playing good defense, I felt like doing everything well, serving well, returning well. To me, she was playing lights out there for a while.”

Sakkari broke Pegula twice in the opening set, with the Greek player converting 80% of her first serve points in the set and winning 45% of her return points to Pegula’s 27%.

In the second set, Pegula led 40-0 on her serve in the fourth game, but Sakkari fought back to win six straight points, finishing with a down-the-line forehand winner deep in the corner to get the first break.

After dropping her racket in frustration and sending a ball into the crowd after a double fault at different points in the set, Pegula found life. She got that break back in the seventh game, her first of the match, needing all three break points to do so. 

That was the start of a roll for the native New Yorker. Pegula broke Sakkari a second time and served it out, winning the final five games of the set after being down 1-4 to even the match. Unlike in the first set, Pegula found her return game, winning 58% of those points the second time around.

“What I told myself was that it happens almost every week that someone’s leading a set and a break and then the opponent comes back,” Sakkari said. “So I was, like, You’re not the first, you’re not the last that is losing this set after being a break up.”

The momentum didn’t last long for Pegula. Sakkari commanded her first set form again in the third, breaking Pegula twice to take four straight games and the match. Sakkari will try to add to her lone WTA win (Rabat, 2019) in her fifth finals appearance of the year. 

“Beginning of the third set also I had a few chances I felt like maybe if I could have broke her it could have swung that way again,” Pegula said. “Then she was able to win a couple of good games, break me, and then she played, again, a really high level to close it out.”

Pegula does get a small consolation — her D.C. performance will bump her back up one spot to No. 3 in the next WTA rankings, equaling her career high.

“I felt like I improved from where I started kind of practicing the week before. I was not feeling good at all. So I’m glad that I was able to kind of get myself out of that funk and at least feel like I’m in a little bit of a match rhythm now and playing rhythm,” Pegula said.

She misses the opportunity to play for a singles title against her friend and doubles running-mate. The third-seeded Gauff sprinted to a quick lead and needed only 1:42 to advance in straight sets. The American has been working with — a “partnership,” as Gauff called it —  legendary tennis coach Brad Gilbert for the first time this week. At 19, she’s the first teenager to reach a final in the District.

Gauff is seeking her second WTA title of the year and fourth overall against Sakkari, who has beaten her twice already in 2023. Gauff is already a D.C. champion in one regard: She won the women’s doubles title with Caty McNally in 2019.

“I watched a little bit now that I was doing treatment,” Sakkari said. “She’s good. She’s solid. She’s serving well. It’s going to be very tough, as it was today.”