LONDON: No. 5 seed Jessica Pegula was ousted in the second round of Wimbledon on Thursday by China's Xinyu Wang, who recorded her first ever defeat of a top-10 player.
The 22-year-old beat world No. 5 Pegula 6-4, 6-7 (9-11), 6-1 in a match that seemed like it could go either way through the first two sets at the All England Club in London.
Pegula made a ferocious comeback attempt in the second set to stay in the match, coming from 3-1 down in the tiebreak and fending off a match point before winning the set.
"I had a few chances in the second set," Wang said on court after the win. "But I was telling myself, 'OK, just focus on the next point, not the last point.'"
Pegula lost steam in the third set to Wang, who built a quick 5-0 lead before finishing off the match with a serve-and-volley.
"Couple of days ago I was asking my coach, 'When will this happen,'" said Wang, whose highest ranking was at world No. 32 in October 2023. "Jessica was really tough to play on grass. Her ball was super low and I'm just really happy I won in the end."
Pegula, 30, reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon last year. Although she was coming off an unexpected loss to Emma Raducanu in the round of 16 at the Rothesay International in late June, prior to that she won her first grass-court title and WTA win this season at the ecotrans Ladies Open in Berlin last month.
Next up for Wang is Harriet Dart, who defeated fellow Brit Katie Boulter 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (10-8).
World No. 1 Iga Swiatek of Poland won her 21st consecutive match while dispatching Croatia's Petra Martic 6-4, 6-3 in one hour and 23 minutes.
Swiatek leads the WTA Tour with 45 victories against just four defeats in 2024. She won two of three break-point opportunities and totaled three aces and 25 winners. Martic had two aces and 13 winners.
"For sure I'm happy. It wasn't easy because Petra is changing the rhythm a lot, she's playing a lot of top spin, she's playing slice and I needed to adjust quickly," Swiatek said. "It's not the first time I've come into this tournament with a streak. It's not that easy to have this baggage on your shoulders. This year feels different. I don't feel like everyone is focusing on it. Two years ago was a lot harder when it was 30-something (37) matches."
Swiatek advanced to the third round and will face Kazakhstan's Yulia Putintseva, a 6-0, 4-6, 6-2 winner over No. 27 Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic.
Fourth-seeded Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan needed three sets to defeat German's Laura Siegemund 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.
No. 10 Ons Jabeur of Tunisia eliminated American Robin Montgomery 6-1, 7-5, while No. 11 Danielle Collins of the United State also won in two sets, 6-3, 6-4 over Dalma Galfi of Hungary. American Madison Keys at No. 12 beat Yafan Yang of China 6-2, 6-2.
The Czech Republic's Barbora Krejcikova, the 31st seed, emerged from a 7-6 (8-6), 7-6 (7-5) battle with American Katie Volynets.
Other seeded players winning included No. 13 Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, the Russian trio of No. 14 Daria Kasatkina, No. 15 Liudmila Samsonova and No. 17 Anna Kalinskaya, and No. 18 Marta Kostyuk and No. 21 Elina Svitolina, both from Ukraine.
Bernarda Pera of the United States rallied to a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over No. 23 Carolina Garcia of France.
The match pitting No. 30 seed Leylah Fernandez of Canada against former World No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark was suspended due to darkness. Wozniacki took the first set 6-3 and dropped the second 2-6 before the third set began 3-3. - Reuters