With Sakkari serving at 2-2 in the first set, Pegula suddenly changed her service return position at 15-15, inducing a double fault. Seeing her opponent’s shakiness, on the next point Pegula sliced a backhand softly down the middle, forcing Sakkari to generate the pace herself. Sakkari took a big cut and drilled a forehand into the middle of the net to set Pegula up with two break points.
In the second set, Pegula began to work the center of the court. She hit two backhands up the middle that gave Sakkari no angles to work with and led to errors. She sent another forehand up the middle, came to net behind it, and again robbed Sakkari of any angle for her passing shot. Finally, she hit a return deep and down the middle on break point, and a frustrated Sakkari hammered it into the net.
Down 2-5, Sakkari tried to muster a last stand, but it fizzled after one game. Which wasn’t a surprise. She had won her rain-delayed semifinal, over Marie Bouzkova, earlier the same day. She had survived back-to-back three-setters, against Danielle Collins and Veronica Kudermetova, to clinch her spot in next week’s WTA Finals in Fort Worth. It has been a long and largely frustrating season for Sakkari, who failed to improve on her promising 2021. But she persevered, and, like Pegula, she was rewarded for it in the end.
These two will travel to Texas for the season finale. Can Sakkari build on her wins in Guadalajara? Will the fans in Pegula’s home country appreciate her the way they did today in Mexico? If she keeps playing the way she has in 2022, the screams—and bigger titles—will come.