The Washington Open final between Jessica Pegula and Alex Eala endured its fair share of drama as the pair battled it out for the WTA 500 title.
The match was forced into postponement after a thunder storm hit the United States capital, so the final was forced to play a day later on the Monday.
The match was derailed when Pegula was a set up, with the second set on serve, and the American was the overwhelming favourite to lift the trophy as a result.
That didn’t happen, as Pegula produced a strange performance on the Monday and Eala took full advantage of it.
She took the next two sets 6-4, 6-0 against an out-of-sorts Pegula to claim the first WTA title of her career.
Pegula hit plenty of unforced errors as the final resumed, and she struggled to deal with the Filipina star’s serve.
The American addressed her difficulties against Eala during her post-match press conference.
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“For whatever reason it felt like I was returning much better yesterday than I was today. I do feel like today she was going more for percentage than trying to go bigger and hit her spot, so I was seeing less second serves,” said Pegula.
“In the warm-up, I think everyone that plays her would probably be working on a slower serve because her serve is definitely slower and you always practice how the person plays, so if they have a big serve I am practicing with people who are hitting their serve bigger, so I was trying to do more of that today which didn’t really seem to help very much!”
Both Pegula and Eala will now head to the Canadian Open a day later, where they will presumably get the campaigns underway on Wednesday’s order of play.
Eala is set to play Alycia Parks in the second round of the tournament, after receiving a first round bye due to her seeding. Parks beat qualifier Victoria Jiménez Kasintseva to set up the match with Eala.
Parks will begin the match ranked 41 places below Eala in the WTA Tour rankings, as the Filipina star has risen to world No 20 following her Washington triumph, although Parks has tasted victory against the 21-year-old star.
The American dispatched Eala in the first round of the Australian Open at the beginning of the 2026 season, by a scoreline of 0-6, 6-3, 6-2.
Pegula, meanwhile, will be looking to bounce back from her Washington Open heartbreak by defeating Magdalena Frech in the second round of the Toronto event, after the Pole defeated Léolia Jeanjean in her first round match.
