Jessica Pegula Continues to Find a Way in Charleston

Jessica Pegula has lost the first set of every match she’s played so far in Charleston. She’s been down a break in the third set of each of them as well. And yet, she’s still in the tournament. 

Pegula is no stranger to long, chaotic three-setters, but in her Charleston run she’s really stepped it up. With a title defense on the line, Pegula has refused to lose through her first three rounds and is showing no sign of slowing down.

Coming off a tough loss to Elena Rybakina in the quarterfinals of Miami, Pegula was in immediate danger as she dropped the first set of her opening match to Yulia Putintseva, 6-4, after failing to maintain an early break advantage. The second set had even more breaks, but this time Pegula managed to emerge on top, flipping the script for a 6-4 set of her own. 

And right at the outset of the third set, Putintseva went up a break for a 2-0 lead. With an immediate break back, though, Pegula got herself back into the match. Despite failing to serve it out at 5-4, Pegula managed an eleventh-hour break for a 7-5 third set, propelling herself into the next round. 

Pegula d. Cocciaretto

Any momentum Pegula gained from her close win over Putintseva was almost immediately lost in her round of 16 match against Elisabetta Cocciaretto. Cocciaretto, who upset Pegula in the first round of Wimbledon in 2025, ran away with the first set for a 6-1 scoreline. And just like the match against Putintseva, Pegula matched the first-set scoreline in the second, doing exactly what Cocciaretto did in the first for her own 6-1 set. 

Then, once again, Pegula went down 2-0 in the third, then broke back. But this time there were no additional breaks, and the third set went to a tiebreak. And it was another breadstick on the board as Pegula clinically closed out the match with a 7-1 tiebreak score. 

Jessica Pegula topples Shnaider