Unrewarded efforts for Badosa in Charleston

It can’t be. Paula Badosa bid farewell last night to the WTA 500 in Charleston after losing a tough and intense quarterfinal match against first seed, Jessica Pegula 6-3, 7-6(6).

The number 33 of the world ranking was able to force a tiebreaker in the second set after regaining the break advantage the American had at 5-4but lost to a rival who made fewer mistakes in decisive moments.

In the decisive tiebreaker, they went up 3-1, but Pegula’s reaction wilted to get a match point (6-5). Badosa continued to fight and was saved, but at 6-6 came the last sentence of the world number 3, who closed the game in the second.

The good news for Badosa is that he is gradually showing improvement in his game. After a very difficult start to the season, the Catalan is approaching the level that has allowed him to become one of the best rackets on the circuit, and this week on the green soil of Charleston there were green shoots that suggest that so he. in one of the important moments of the season, Roland Garros.

He went up 3-1 in the second set tiebreaker and, after losing five straight points, he did not concede a single match point, before surrendering the second.

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Despite the loss, Badosa will move up a few steps in the WTA rankings on Monday. It is the 31st, classification in which he will face his next appointment, the stuttgart tournamentstarting April 17. There he will defend the semifinals he achieved last year.

Pegula was seeded in the semifinalswhere the first four seeds came from.

It will be measured this Saturday with the Swiss Belinda Bencicwhile the tournament’s second and third seeds, Tunisian Ons Jabeur and Russian Daria Kasatkina, respectively, will meet in the other semifinal.

Jabeur, fifth player in the world and winner of last year in Berlin and the WTA 1000 in Madrid they added in Birmingham in 2021, she outlasted Russian Anna Kalinskaya, who retreated as the African won 6-0 and 4-1.

The Tunisian tennis player, an unsuccessful Charleston finalist for the past two years, will look for a new final in the rivalry against Kasatkina, third seed, defeated American Madison Keys 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-2.

Kasatkina, champion of this tournament in 2017, became a finalist this year in Adelaide. He is aiming for his seventh title in the American competition, the first in 2023.