Top seed Jessica Pegula beats Paula Badosa, faces Belinda Bencic in Charleston Open semifinals

Charleston [US], April 8 : The World No.3 Jessica Pegula cruised to her fourth semifinal of the season after defeating No.33 Paula Badosa 6-3, 7-6(6) in the quarter-finals of the Charleston Open.

Seeded No.1 in Charleston, Pegula will face defending champion Belinda Bencic in Saturday's semifinal. Bencic sealed her return to the semifinals with a clinical 6-3, 6-3 win over Ekaterina Alexandrova.

Pegula and Badosa traded baseline blows for seven games in cool and increasingly windy conditions before the American asserted her authority. As the aggressor, Pegula converted the only break point of the set to take a 5-3 lead and close out the 35-minute first set.

Pegula struck first in the second set, breaking for a 1-0 lead. Pegula confidently rolled through her service games to keep Badosa at bay, but the Spard finally broke through as Pegula served for the victory.

Pegula watched two perfectly struck Badosa forehands land in to build scoreboard pressure while serving for the win at 5-4, 15-0. Badosa capitalised on her opportunity, winning back-to-back long rallies to break for the first time and tie the game at 5-5.

Pegula, on the other hand, would win in a tight tiebreak. With the score tied 5-5, Pegula drilled a forehand down the line to earn match point, which was quickly saved by a Badosa forehand winner. Pegula wasted no time on her second opportunity, breaking open the point with a deep and heavy forehand before Badosa netted a passing attempt to end the one-hour and 41-minute match.

"She made me earn it in the end. The conditions started getting really tricky. I know there's some rain coming, so I'm glad I was able to get through that, especially in straight sets," WTA.com quoted Pegula as saying.

"Belinda is really tough. She's a really tough matchup for me. I haven't played her in a while. I think I've improved a lot since the last time I played her. But we play kind of similar, hit kind of low flat, take it early. And she tends to kind of feed off my pace and like how I play," Pegula said.