Top-seeded Jessica Pegula held off Paula Badosa 6-3, 7-6 (8/6) on Friday to line up a semifinal conflict with defending champion Belinda Bencic as the highest 4 seeds superior on the WTA Charleston clay courtroom event.
Switzerland’s Bencic, seeded fourth, received her ninth straight match in Charleston when she beat seventh-seeded Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-3, 6-3.
Second-seeded Ons Jabeur superior when Anna Kalinskaya retired from their quarterfinal due to sickness.
Jabeur was up 6-0, 4-1 when Kalinskaya referred to as it a day, the Tunisian reaching the semifinals for the third straight yr.
She will subsequent face third-seeded Daria Kasatkina, who turned the tables on ninth-seeded American Madison Keys 6-7 (5/7), 6-4, 6-2 in a battle of former Charleston champions.
Kasatkina notched simply her second victory over Keys in 10 profession conferences.
Pegula, ranked third on the earth, wanted simply 35 minutes to seize the opening set from Badosa, and broke to open the second.
Powering by her service video games, Pegula served for the match at 5-4 just for Badosa to interrupt and stage the set.
The Spaniard held off a break level within the subsequent sport as they went to the tiebreaker, the place she saved a match level with a forehand winner earlier than giving Pegula one other with a forehand lengthy, her backhand into the web lastly permitting Pegula to have fun.
Pegula, who’s in search of her first clay courtroom title, could have her work reduce out towards Bencic, who’s chasing her third title of the season after victories in Adelaide and Abu Dhabi.
Jabeur, who improved to 2-0 towards Kalinskaya and reached her second semifinal of the season.
The first was in Adelaide in January. Since then Jabeur — the crushed finalist at Wimbledon and the US Open final yr — has undergone surgical procedure after struggling a knee harm on the Australian Open.
She missed the WTA’s tournaments in Doha and Dubai, and after falling within the third spherical at Indian Wells misplaced her second-round opener at Miami.
However, Jabeur has checked out residence on the inexperienced clay at Charleston, reaching the semis with out dropping a set.
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