American No.1 Jessica Pegula is back in the quarterfinals at the Mubadala Citi DC Open after defeating fellow-American Peyton Stearns 6-3, 6-4 on Stadium Court Thursday afternoon.
Pegula was playing her first match since reaching the final-8 at Wimbledon last month and is now into her eighth quarterfinal of the year. The World No.4 won her first career WTA title in Washington in 2019 and is back as the No.1 seed for the second consecutive year.
“I won my first title here with my coach [David Witt] in our first week together and since then, we’ve just been rising and it’s been an awesome journey,” Pegula said. “That was a very big turning point for me.”
Pegula will next face wild card Elina Svitolina in a marque quarterfinal on Friday.
Svitolina returned to the WTA Tour in April after her 12-month maternity leave. She has earned straight-sets win this week over former World No.1 Victoria Azarenka and No.5-seed Daria Kasatkina, improving her overall match record to 16-3 since late May. Along the way, the Ukrainian earned a title in Strasbourg and reached the semifinals at Wimbledon.
“She's an amazing competitor, obviously an amazing player,” Pegula said. “What she's done after coming back after giving birth and everything that her country is going through, it's been really amazing.
“I feel like she's coming back with a new perspective, a new outlook, and that's showing on court. She's competing really, really hard and hasn't really seemed to skip a beat. It's going to be really tough.”
Elsewhere on Thursday afternoon, Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk upset World No.6 Caroline Garcia of France 6-2, 6-3, advancing to her fourth quarterfinal of the year.
Kostyuk improved to 2-14 lifetime against Top-10 opponents and will next face defending DC champion Liudmila Samsonova in the final-8 on Friday. Samsonova is a perfect 7-0 in Rock Creek Park dating back to her title run last summer.
