Pegula saves two match points, outlasts Ostapenko in Doha

 Pegula saves two match points, outlasts Ostapenko in Doha

No.2 seed Jessica Pegula won the last five games of her match with Jelena Ostapenko, advancing to a quarterfinal clash against Beatriz Haddad Maia at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open. Maria Sakkari also reached the elite eight.

No.2 seed Jessica Pegula of the United States kicked off her Middle East swing with a come-from-behind victory, saving two match points before overcoming Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-2, 2-6, 7-5 on Wednesday to reach the Qatar TotalEnergies Open quarterfinals.

World No.4 Pegula was down 5-2 in the third set and stared down the pair of match points at 5-4, but she squeaked her way through the decider on the way to a 1-hour and 52-minute win over 14th-ranked Ostapenko.

Doha history: Ostapenko reached the Doha semifinals last season, which was part of her brilliant Middle East swing in 2022. Ostapenko also won the title in Dubai last year.

But the year before that, Pegula defeated Ostapenko en route to the 2021 Doha semifinals as a qualifier. In their first meeting since that match, the American repeated her win over 2017 Roland Garros champion Ostapenko, increasing her head-to-head lead to 3-1.

Match moments: A resilient comeback was required before Pegula grabbed another win over Ostapenko and reached her second quarterfinal of the season. After an opening set where Ostapenko never broke serve, the Latvian regained her pinpoint groundstroke game to take the second set.

Strong returns gave Ostapenko the early break in the third set for a 2-0 lead, and she extended that advantage to 5-2. Pegula did pull back on serve with a solid break of her own for 5-4, but errors by the American gave Ostapenko two match points in that game.

However, Ostapenko missed returns on both of those chances, and Pegula held on for 5-5. Pegula then broke for 6-5 after successfully challenging a wide Ostapenko forehand, and Pegula claimed her fifth straight game by serving out the match routinely.

Haddad Maia next up: After surviving that tussle, Jessica Pegula will now have her first meeting with Brazil's Beatriz Haddad Maia in the quarterfinals. Haddad Maia took down No.6 seed Daria Kasatkina 6-3, 7-6(7) in 1 hour and 40 minutes to make her third quarterfinal of the year.

Since being upset in the first round of the Australian Open, Haddad Maia has won five of her last six matches. The Brazilian reached the semifinals in Abu Dhabi last week, helping her reach her new career-high ranking of World No.12.

Haddad Maia had a chance to serve out the match at 5-3 in the second set, but could not finish it there. Kasatkina then had triple set point at 6-3 in the second-set tiebreak, putting her on the brink of tying the match.

However, Kasatkina hit three straight errors to allow Haddad Maia to claw back to 6-6 in the breaker. Haddad Maia then converted her second match point at 8-7 by polishing off a rally with an error-forcing forehand.

Sakkari eases into quarterfinals

At roughly the same time as Pegula's win, another Top 5 seed joined her in the Doha quarterfinals. No.5 seed Maria Sakkari cruised past 18th-ranked Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-3, 6-2 to reach the last eight in Qatar for the third straight season.

World No.7 Sakkari continued her sterling record against Alexandrova, improving to 6-1 in their head-to-head after Wednesday's 1-hour and 21-minute victory. Sakkari is into her second quarterfinal in a two-week span, following her semifinal showing in Linz a week ago.

Greece's Sakkari backed up her tough first-round win over Zheng Qinwen with a more straightforward result against Alexandrova. Sakkari was particularly strong returning the Alexandrova second service, winning 65 percent of those points.