Americans Jessica Pegula and Taylor Fritz fall in Washington semi-finals, Stefanos Tsitsipas captures Mexico title

WASHINGTON – American top seeds Jessica Pegula and Taylor Fritz suffered semi-final defeats at the Washington Open on Saturday, but Coco Gauff kept the star-spangled banner flying by earning a place in Sunday’s final.

Greek fourth seed Maria Sakkari upset Pegula 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 and she will face another home favourite in the final after Gauff defeated Russian Liudmila Samsonova, the defending champion, 6-3, 6-3.

Fritz fell to Tallon Griekspoor 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 and the Dutchman will play for the title against Britain’s Dan Evans, who beat Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov 6-3, 7-6 (7-4).

Sakkari, forced to play twice on Friday due to rain on Thursday at the hard-court event, reached her first final since losing to Pegula in October 2022 at Guadalajara in Mexico. She won her only WTA title in 2019 at the Morocco Open.

“It would have been ideal if I could be off the court an hour earlier,” Sakkari said. “But in the end I got the win, which is what I wanted the most. Actually I had a feeling that this tournament was going to be good for me. I’m playing good tennis again.”

Her compatriot Stefanos Tsitsipas, meanwhile, defeated Australian fifth seed Alex de Minaur 6-3, 6-4 to capture the ATP Mexico Open for his first title in 14 months.

The top seed, runner-up in the 2023 Australian Open, claimed his first ATP outdoor hard-court crown in his third final of the year, having fallen to Novak Djokovic in Melbourne and top-ranked Carlos Alcaraz in Barcelona in April.

The 24-year-old captured his 10th career title and first since June 2022 in Mallorca to snap a five-final win drought. The world No. 5 improved to 10-0 against 19th-ranked de Minaur, who was hoping for a Mexico double after winning the title at Acapulco in February.

“It was a great match,” Tsitsipas said. “I’m really happy we were able to deliver great quality in the final match.”

Minaur, 24, was denied an eighth career ATP crown in his third final of the year. He also lost to Alcaraz in June’s trophy match at Queen’s.

In the American capital, 2019 champion Pegula was denied her fifth career final but will match her career high of third in the world rankings this week.

Sakkari improved to 5-3 in her career rivalry with Pegula, who won their previous meeting in February’s Doha semi-finals.

Gauff has lost four of her five meetings with Sakkari but says she has learnt from those losses. “She’s an incredible player. She has been at the top of the game for a long time and it’s going to be a difficult match,” she said.

Evans, 33, who becomes the tournament’s first British finalist since Andy Murray 17 years ago, produced some inspired and aggressive tennis in his win after playing two matches on Friday. AFP