Bad Homburg Open: Paolini, Pegula reach quarters via contrasting routes

Bad Homburg (Germany), June 24 (IANS) The top two seeds at the Bad Homburg Open both made it safely into the quarterfinals on Tuesday -- but via contrasting routes.

No. 2 Jasmine Paolini needed to navigate a host of set-point saves and match-point misses before overcoming Leylah Fernandez 7-6(8), 7-6(6) in 2 hours and 32 minutes, the joint second-longest two-set match of 2025 so far. No. 1 Jessica Pegula was thoroughly efficient in defeating qualifier Katerina Siniakova 6-3, 6-2 in 66 minutes.

Paolini's victory was a triumph of clutch play for the Italian. The tone was set in a seven-deuce opening game, which Fernandez eventually held, and from there, the momentum shifted back and forth between the pair. Paolini, volleying with panache, took a 4-2 lead, only for Fernandez to bounce back with a three-game run. At 6-5, the Canadian held her first set point, but Paolini came up with the shot of the match -- a terrific lob on the run to end a lung-busting rally -- to fend it off as per WTA.

Another two set points for Fernandez came and went in the tiebreak before Paolini converted her second by coming out on top of another enthralling all-court exchange, foiling the former US Open runner-up with an unexpectedly short smash.

Paolini rode her momentum to a 5-2 lead in the second set, but Fernandez had upped her baseline aggression, particularly off her forehand wing. This began to pay off as she started to mount a remarkable comeback. Down 5-2, she staved off a first match point with an ace, then clawed her way back to level at 5-5. Fernandez escaped triple match point down 6-5 as Paolini's backhand let the Rome champion down, then was poised to force a third set as she held a double set point in the tiebreak.

But Fernandez was unable to convert either, and a relieved Paolini escaped with the last four points of the match in a row. She will next face either No. 7 seed Elina Svitolina or Beatriz Haddad Maia

Pegula and Siniakova have become frequent foes over the years, and their best battles have come on grass. Siniakova was a 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 victor in the 2021 Bad Homburg second round, the year she made her first of two finals here; last year, Pegula defeated the Czech 7-6(2), 3-6, 6-3 in the Berlin quarterfinals en route to her first grass-court title.

There was no such barnburner in their third encounter on the German lawns. Pegula was near-impenetrable on serve, dropping just four points behind her first delivery and facing just two break points all day. She advances to face either No. 5 seed Emma Navarro or wild card Naomi Osaka.

--IANS

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