Americans Gauff, Pegula Advance At Indian Wells; Swiatek v Andreescu Monday

American No. 1 Jessica Pegula had to rally to get by No. 26 seed Anastasia Potapova 3-6, 6-4, 7-5 in Indian Wells third round action on Sunday.

The 21-year-old Potapova had chances to go up two breaks early in the third for 3-0 before Pegula got back into it thanks a flurry of errors and double faults from the Russian.

Pegula has never lost to Potapova, leading 2-0 in tour-level head-to-head meetings.

“That was definitely a battle today,” Pegula said. “I just felt like I started off a little slow. She had some confidence, you know, going, obviously going for a lot of her shots. She just won a tournament as well.

“I’ve played her before, once where I won a little bit easier and once where I also had a really tough match with her. I wasn’t completely surprised. I know she can play really well, and she definitely came out hitting her shots and painting lines and going after it.

“So I’m just glad I was able to work my way back into the match, and, you know, ended up playing much better than how I started.”

The the all-18 battle between No. 6 seed Coco Gauff and Linda Noskova went to Gauff who took it 6-4, 6-3. In the match, Gauff hit seven aces, won 30/34 (88%) on first serves, faced 1 break chances. Gauff never lost serve, while breaking the Czech three times in the match. Gauff turns 19 on Monday.

“I think she played the match the right way,” Gauff said. ” Today I just played a little bit better in certain moments. I watched her play a lot of her matches this year in Adelaide and Australia. Yeah, she’s a great player. I think hopefully we will have many more battles in the future. I think she’s going to keep rising up the rankings and keep doing better and better each tournament.”

Also Sunday, No. 7 seed and former finalist Maria Sakkari advanced past No. 27 Anhelina Kalinina 3-6, 6-2, 6-4. No. 17 seed Karolina Pliskova upended 11th-seeded Veronika Kudermetova in straight sets 6-1, 7-5. The 15th-seeded Petra Kvitova came ack to deny No. 24 Jelena Ostapenko in three 0-6, 6-0, 6-4. Rebecca Peterson of Sweden eliminated Switzerland’s Jil Teichmann 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 and No. 16 seed Barbora Krejcikova sent off Xinyu Wang 6-2, 6-7(1-7), 6-2.

Second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka got a withdrawal from Lesia Tsurenko. Tsurenko said she suffered a panic attack right before the match over the war in her country.

Lesia Tsurenko told us she felt mentally bad for a few days and had a mental breakdown "after all the things I’ve heard. It was a panic attack, I had trouble breathing. A few days ago I had a conversation with Steve Simon, I was absolutely shocked by what I heard from him" 👇 pic.twitter.com/hZZJcNtWOA

— Ukrainian Tennis • BTU (@ukrtennis_eng) March 13, 2023

The Tuesday slate includes third round play with former champion Bianca Andreescu taking on defending champion Iga Swiatek. Swiatek is ahead of Andreescu 1-0 in their tour-level encounters coming ahead in their sole collision in the 2022 Rome quarterfinals.

No. 4 Ons Jabeur returns to face Marketa Vondrousova. The Czech beat her at the Australian.

No. 5 Caroline Garcia draws No. 30 Leylah Fernandez, No. 8 Daria Kasatkina clashes with Varvara Gracheva, former champion Paula Badosa will meet No. 10 Elena Rybakina, No. 13 Beatriz Haddad Maia collides with Emma Raducanu, No. 23 Martina Trevisan gets Karolina Muchova and also Sorana Cirstea tests Bernarda Pera.

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