Pegula dominates weary Samsonova to win NBO women’s singles title

MONTREAL — Even champion Jessica Pegula wishes the National Bank Open women’s singles final could be played under different circumstances.

Fourth seed Pegula put on a dominant performance Sunday evening, beating a tired Russian Liudmila Samsonova 6-1, 6-0 in a 49-minute final that was never close to winning her first NBO title.

“She has a crazy schedule,” says Samsonova’s Pegula. “She plays a lot of matches in a short period of time. and it doesn’t fit We can’t really do anything. it’s just the weather But I know scheduling is not in her favor.

“It sucks when you feel like you’re not really on a fair field.”

15th seed Samsonova, who played two matches on Friday due to a week of bad weather in Montreal, beat Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan 1-6, 6-1. , 6-2 last Sunday to advance to the WTA 1000 singles finals.

The semi-finals were originally scheduled for Saturday evening. But it had to be postponed to Sunday due to the rainy weather.

Despite the weather affecting most of the matches on a daily basis, Samsonova believes tournament organizers can do more to avoid her playing twice on the same day multiple times.

“Everybody saw in the forecast that at 6pm (Saturday) it was going to rain, so I know, but of course it’s weird that people don’t really care about us,” she said. “Because if you know they have to, I think. – This is my idea _ Set a possible schedule to play. Because we already made two matches in one day.

“So you have to try your best not to play two matches the other day. This is my opinion.”

Samsonova only had two hours and 15 minutes to recover during the match. during that time She said she couldn’t.

As a result, the 24-year-old struggled, saying she tried to do something until she was 0-3 down in the second set, but made mistakes over and over again. Including two mistakes up to six times.

“Honestly. I would like to have (have) more time (during the match),” said Samsonova. “But they said it was impossible. So it’s okay.

“I didn’t have time to rebuild because I was in the physical room trying to tape all over my body. And it takes an hour for this,” she added. “So I don’t know what to say. I’m out of court (back) in and I don’t know, it’s weird.”

Pegula, meanwhile, is well rested after beating world No. 1 Iga Swiatek in the first semi-final on Saturday afternoon. before the weather gets worse and it has shown

Samsonova, though, looks exhausted. But Pegula played flawlessly. Get 100 per cent first serve points and go 5v8 on breakpoints.

A day after destroying Iga Swiatek 11 times, Pegula did the same. by hitting the returning multiple winner with her forehand to break Samsonova twice en route to the first set in 20 minutes.

The American rider also scored well in the second set. by converting a 3-point breakpoint without losing a single game. Overall, Pegula won 51 points to Samsonova’s 21.

“I know your body isn’t feeling its best. But at the same time I played clean,” said Pegula. I played a perfect match.”

And although the finals were easy But Pegula’s path to the title was certainly not.

The 29-year-old grabbed the sixth seed and beat Coco. Teammate Goff doubled in the quarterfinals. before defeating Sviatek in the semi-finals _ both in three sets _ to reach the finals.

It was Pegula’s first WTA title of the year and the third of her career. The Buffalo, N.Y. product last won at the Guadalajara Open in October of last year.

The title also marks Pegula’s another successful trip to Canada, where her grandmother was from Montreal.

Pegula played her first WTA singles final at the National Bank Cup in Quebec City in 2018. She also made it to the NBO semi-finals in 2021 and 2022 before reaching the final this year.

“I’m not quite sure what it is. I think it’s a little bit of an idea. I always play well here. So I always have a positive attitude and a good spirit. So I can always play good tennis here,” she said.

“I like the feeling of being in the Northeast. Maybe it’s because it’s where I’m comfortable I guess sometimes you get comfortable that you like to play. And that can definitely affect your results. So I think it always plays with my results here. Yeah, I don’t know what it is. But I will take it.”

In Sunday’s doubles play, No. 7 Shuko Aoyama and Japan’s Ena Shibahara, who also played two matches that day, beat No. 5 Demi Schuurs of the Netherlands and Desirae Krawczyk of the USA 6-4, 4-6, 13. – Last 11