No. 1 seed Jessica Pegula opened her Credit One Charleston Open title defense by coming through a 3-hour, 10-minute showdown, surviving Yulia Putintseva 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 to reach the third round.
Charleston: Scores | Draws | Order of play
Pegula has made a habit of living — and winning — in three-set matches. She improved to 7-1 in deciding sets this season and 16-4 since the US Open, continuing a run built on absorbing pressure and closing late. This one pushed even her standards. It stands as the longest tour-level win of her career, edging past her 3:04 victory over Leylah Fernandez in the 2024 Cincinnati quarterfinals, and her longest match overall since the 3:21 loss to Liudmila Samsonova in Berlin last year — another reminder that when matches drag deep, Pegula tends to be the one still standing.
“Even though it’s not ideal maybe for tomorrow, but I do feel like getting a three-hour match, I mean, you really break in the lungs,” Pegula said to press. “Like the aerobic and anaerobic fitness gets broken in quite a bit. And I feel like that actually, if I can get through tomorrow, I think can set me up more further down the line.”
Pegula had not lost a set to Putintseva in three previous meetings, but this was their first encounter on clay — and the Kazakhstani player, searching for her eighth career Top 5 win, pushed her to the limit in a riveting tactical battle that will surely be a candidate for the best match of the 2026 season. Putintseva held two points for a 3-0 third-set lead, but ultimately Pegula delivered cool-headed shot selection on the biggest points.
“Not a lot of words,” Pegula said in her on-court interview. “All I could think was, ‘Welcome to clay-court season.’ Oh my God, it’s my first match on clay. Kudos to Yulia. She’s a really tricky opponent, especially on clay. She can be really crafty, use high balls, low balls, slices, drop shots, and I felt like she was just honestly toying with me there for quite a while. I’m not really sure how I found my way back. In the third, there were so many back-and-forth moments as well.”
Pegula will next face No. 14 seed Elisabetta Cocciaretto, who defeated lucky loser Yuan Yue 6-0, 7-5. Cocciaretto raced through the first 10 games to lead 6-0, 4-0 before Yuan mounted a late charge to win five games in a row. Down 5-4 in the second set, the Italian steadied herself to take the last three games of the match.
Meanwhile, No. 2 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova was forced to withdraw from the tournament ahead of her second-round match against Yuliia Starodubtseva.
“I am really sorry to share that I need to withdraw from Charleston this week,” Alexandrova said in a statement. “I sustained a bit of an injury in Miami that needs some more attention and treatment. Charleston is one of my favorite weeks of the year, so I’m sad that I won’t be able to play in front of the fans tonight. I hope to see all of you next year!”
Starodubtseva will instead face No. 164-ranked lucky loser Ekaterine Gorgodze. The 34-year-old Georgian will return to a WTA main draw for the first time since Prague 2022.
Set one: Blood, sweat and drop shots
The stage was set for a classic from the very first game, which saw Pegula hammering backhands down the line and Putintseva weaving her web with drop shots and passing shots, ultimately holding after saving four break points.
The World No. 72’s confidence in her strategy was clear: pushing Pegula behind the baseline with loopy topspin, stretching her out wide with sharp angles, never giving her the same ball twice and ultimately taking away the flat rhythm on which she thrives. From a break down at 2-1, Putintseva stuck to her game plan, without letting an enforced — and reluctant — medical timeout to treat a bleeding finger distract her. In the final game of the set, Putintseva’s superb defense and variety elicited a slew of errors from the Pegula forehand as she broke for the set.
Set two: Pegula finds the answer in the forecourt
Pegula had been prevented from playing her preferred brand of tennis in the first set, but the second saw her take matters into her own hands. Though she had only won six of 14 net points in the opener, the Dubai champion kept on coming forwards — 21 times in total in the second set. Her winning ratio didn’t improve — Pegula only won 11 of those 21 points — but the tactic successfully shifted the match’s dynamic away from Putintseva controlling extended baseline rallies.
At 1-1, Pegula also began to successfully get a handle on the Putintseva serve, landing consecutive return winners for the first time. She didn’t manage to capture her opponent’s serve in that game, but it did foreshadow her best return of the day soon afterwards to break for 5-2. Putintseva attempted a late charge back, but a top-quality final game saw the set conclude with an excellent Pegula drop shot, followed by an errant Putintseva one.
Set three: Back-and-forth momentum shifts
There was no hint of any lull or dip in quality at the start of the decider. The first three games saw Pegula triumph in a series of lung-busting rallies, while Putintseva found some magic with an inside-out backhand angle and an exquisite sliced winner down the line. But with two points to hold for 3-0, Putintseva was punished for an overly heavy drop shot, then netted a backhand. Pegula broke back with a crisp volley, and ran off five of the next six games for a 5-3 lead.
With the finishing line in sight, a handful of errors crept back into Pegula’s baseline game — and, sensing she still had a chance, Putintseva redoubled her hustling efforts to peg the scoreline back to 5-5.
But in the home stretch, it was shot selection that made the difference. At 5-5, 15-15, Putintseva had worked Pegula from side to side and had the court open to put away an overhead. She opted for a too-cute drop shot smash — and paid the price, as Pegula sprinted up to put it away emphatically. Two points later, Pegula extricated herself from an extended baseline duel by taking a bold drive volley out of the air, landing a winner perfectly in the corner.
On Pegula’s fourth break point of the game, the 15-15 point repeated itself. Perhaps mindful of her wrong shot choice earlier, Putintseva put all her might into an attempted backhand putaway — only to send it wide. The final break of the match was Pegula’s, and the top seed served out the win to 15, converting her second match point with a simple one-two punch.
