Jessica Pegula’s aims this week at the DC Open are to win her third career singles title and to improve her game in preparation for the year’s final Grand Slam.
The tournament’s top seed and fourth-ranked women’s player in the world had a slow start to defeat fellow American Peyton Stearns 6-3, 6-4 Thursday to advance to the quarterfinals of the hard-court tuneup for the U.S. Open. Pegula won just before the rain started, glad to have fought through some windy conditions and defeated a challenging opponent.
Jessica Pegula won in Washington in 2019 and would like to win three more times and win another title before leaving the city.
Pegula, 29, has never advanced past the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam. She is coming off a quarterfinal defeat at Wimbledon and a round of 32 exit at the French Open.
Her two singles titles have both come on hard court, and this event is an opportunity for the Buffalo, New York, native to fine-tune certain aspects of her game in preparation for a long run at Flushing Meadows.
Talking about the men’s side of the draw, fifth-seeded Grigor Dimitrov defeated Emil Ruusuvuori 6-4, 6-3, and J.J. Wolf defeated Michael Mmoh 6-4, 7-6 (5) to move on to the quarterfinals.
