3rd seed Jessica Pegula continues late-season charge

Third-ranked Jessica Pegula responded to losing a marathon first set by raising her game to a near-perfect level in her 6-7(9) 6-1 6-2 win over Veronika Kudermetova in the third round of the China Open.

Pegula has won 17 of her last 19 matches, including defending her title in Toronto and making finals at Cincinnati and the US Open, where her only defeats have come to Aryna Sabalenka, the top-seeded player in Beijing.

The American made three service breaks in the first set, but also lost three of her own, with Kudermetova prevailing in a lung-busting 20-point tiebreaker to take the lead.

The loss of the tiebreaker seemed to spur Pegula to life as she found her groundstroke range to break her Russian opponent’s serve twice in each set to take the match in just over two-and-a-half hours. It was Pegula’s first win against the 39th-ranked Kudermetova in three attempts.

Pegula will play the 15th-seeded Paola Badosa in the fourth round after the Spaniard beat Serbian Rebecca Sramkova 7-5 7-5.

Poland’s Magdalena Frech, seeded 23rd, overcame a disastrous start to rally to a 0-6 6-3 6-4 win over 12th-seeded Diana Shnaider and next faces the 595th-ranked wildcard Zhang Shuai, who beat Greet Minnen of Belgium 6-2 6-3. The No. 6-ranked Coco Gauff beat Katie Boulter of Britain 7-5 6-2.

In the men’s draw, local favourite Bu Yunchaokete upset Paris Olympics bronze medallist Lorenzo Musetti 6-2 6-4 for the 22-year-old’s first victory against a top-20 player.

Seveth-seeded Karen Khacharov made 15 fewer winners and four more unforced errors than Argentine Francisco Cerundolo, but found a way to win the big points in a 7-6(4) 7-6(9) victory to take him through to the quarterfinals.

He next faces third-ranked Carlos Alcaraz, who beat Tallon Greikspoor 6-1 6-2. Alcaraz needs to make at least the semifinals this week to rise above Alexander Zverev to No. 2 in the rankings. Zverev is not playing in Beijing as he recovers from an illness.