Liudmila Samsonova of Russia defeated Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan 1-6, 6-1, 6-2 on Sunday afternoon to advance to the National Bank Open women’s singles final. Samsonova hits a return to Rybakina during semifinal action at the National Bank Open tennis tournament in Montreal, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi.
MONTREAL – Even champion Jessica Pegula wishes the National Bank Open women’s singles final could have been played under different circumstances.
The fourth-seeded Pegula put on a dominant display Sunday evening, defeating a tired Liudmila Samsonova of Russia 6-1, 6-0 in a 49-minute final that never looked close to capture her first NBO title.
“She’s had a crazy schedule,” said Pegula of Samsonova. “She’s played a lot of matches in a short amount of time and it’s not ideal. There’s nothing we could really do, it was just the weather, but I know scheduling wasn’t in her favour.
“It sucks when you feel like you’re not on a really fair playing ground.”
The 15th-seeded Samsonova, who had already played two matches on Friday due to a week riddled with poor weather in Montreal, defeated Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan 1-6, 6-1, 6-2 earlier Sunday to advance to the final of the WTA 1000 singles event.
The semifinal was originally scheduled for Saturday evening but had to be pushed to Sunday because of rainy weather.
Despite the weather, which affected nearly every day of the tournament, Samsonova believes organizers could have done more to avoid having her play twice on the same day multiple times.
“Everyone saw that on the forecast that at 6 p.m. (Saturday) it would be raining, so I knew that. But, of course, it’s strange that the people don’t care so much about us,” she said. “Because if you know that you must, I think – this is my opinion – make a schedule where it’s possible to play because we already made two matches in one day.
“So you have to try to do the best to not play two matches on another day. This is my opinion.”
Samsonova only had two hours and 15 minutes to recover between matches. In that amount of time, she says she couldn’t.
As a result, the 24-year-old battled, saying she tried to get something going until she was down 0-3 in the second set, but made error after error, including six double faults.
“Honestly, I would love to have (had) more time (between matches),” said Samsonova. “But they said that it’s not possible, so it’s OK.
“I didn’t have time to regenerate because I was in the physio room trying to tape all my body, and it takes one hour for this,” she added. “So I don’t know what to say. I was out of the court and then (back) in, and I don’t know. It was strange.”
Earlier Sunday, Rybakina also took issue with the scheduling and singled out the WTA, saying she felt “destroyed” after playing a three-hour 27-minute marathon against Daria Kasatkina of Russia that wrapped up close to 3 a.m. local time on Saturday morning.
Montreal tournament director Valerie Tetreault said that factored into the decision to push Saturday’s semifinal to Sunday.
“With the WTA people we needed to make a decision around 8 o’clock or 8:30 in the evening (Saturday),” said Tetreault. “We knew Rybakina had stayed very late in the night or very early in the morning, let’s say, the day before.
“So we looked at the weather forecast, and we had no assurance that the match would be able to be played at a reasonable time.”
Pegula, meanwhile, was well-rested after beating world No. 1 Iga Swiatek in the first semifinal Saturday afternoon before the weather took a turn for the worse – and it showed.
As much as Samsonova looked fatigued, Pegula also played flawlessly, winning 100 per cent of her first service points and going five-for-eight on break points.
A day after breaking Iga Swiatek 11 times, Pegula was up to much of the same, hitting multiple return winners with her forehand to break Samsonova twice en route to taking the first set in 20 minutes.
The American even cranked that up a notch in the second set, converting three break points without dropping a single game. In total, Pegula won 51 points to Samsonova’s 21.
“I know physically she obviously wasn’t feeling her best but at the same time I played a really clean match,” said Pegula. “I don’t think I made any unforced errors or anything. I played kind of a perfect match.”
And though the final was a breeze, Pegula’s road to the title certainly wasn’t.
The 29-year-old took down sixth seed and doubles teammates Coco Gauff in the quarterfinals before defeating Swiatek in the semis – both in three sets – to reach the final.
It’s Pegula’s first WTA title this year and the third of her career. The product of Buffalo, N.Y., last won a tournament at the Guadalajara Open in October last year.
The title also marks another successful trip to Canada for Pegula, whose grandmother is from Montreal.
Pegula played her first WTA singles final at the National Bank Cup in Quebec City in 2018. She also made the NBO semifinals in 2021 and 2022 before finally breaking through this year.
“I’m not really sure what it is. I think it’s a little bit of mindset. I’ve always kind of played well here, so I always come in with a good attitude and good spirits that I can always play good tennis here,” she said.
“I like feeling like I’m up in the Northeast kind of area, maybe because that’s where I’m comfortable. I guess it’s sometimes you feel comfortable where you like to play, and that can definitely play into your results. So I think it’s just always played into my results here. Yeah, I don’t know what it is, but I’ll take it.”
In doubles play Sunday, No. 7 seeds Shuko Aoyama and Ena Shibahara of Japan, who also played two matches on the day, defeated No. 5 seeds Demi Schuurs of the Netherlands and American Desirae Krawczyk 6-4, 4-6, 13-11 in the final.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 13, 2023.
