Jessica Pegula won the WTA Charleston Open final on Sunday, 6-3, 7-5, taking advantage of a stunning breakdown by Sofia Kenin to win her second championship of the year.
Pegula got out to a confident start, breaking Kenin three times to go a set up in just over 30 minutes, only one week after losing to world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka.
Kenin was ready to demand a deciding after losing the first set. In the second set, she jumped out to a 5-1 lead by breaking Pegula’s serve three times.
The unseeded American’s poise, however, broke down in a sea of unforced mistakes, enabling Pegula to win six straight games and earn her second triumph of the year after winning the ATX Open in Austin last month.
She is now the most successful player on the WTA tour, having won 17 of her past 19 games, including her most recent triumph, which was the 25th of the season.
After an injury-plagued season that saw her withdraw from Stuttgart, Madrid, Rome, and Roland-Garros, finishing as the seventh-ranked player in the world, Pegula ended 2024 in a spectacular fashion by making it to the US Open final, where she lost to Sabalenka. She has since carried that momentum into 2025 to climb back up the world rankings.
In fact, Sunday’s triumph over Kenin marked her tenth victory in just 17 days, spanning 11 games.
Now that she has surpassed Coco Gauff to take the top spot in the American tour rankings, Pegula’s schedule doesn’t get any easier. in Friday, she will compete in the Billie Jean King Cup in Bratislava, Slovakia.
