Jessica Pegula was one point from the end of her season. Serving at 4-5 in the third set against Linda Noskova at Indian Wells on Thursday, she double-faulted to hand the Wimbledon champion a match point. She held for 5-5, broke for 6-5 and served it out, winning 7-6(2), 4-6, 7-5 after 2 hours and 45 minutes. The last point fell her way when a net cord dropped back on Noskova’s side.
The win put Pegula into the semifinals of the WTA Finals and knocked out Coco Gauff, who had done her part a few hours earlier. Noskova finished first in Group 1 anyway: taking the second set was enough to make sure of top place.
The serve. Pegula hit a career-high 16 aces, one of them to level the third set at 5-5. Noskova served 15 double faults, also a career high. Pegula’s first-serve percentage fell from 61 in the opening set to 50 in the second, and Noskova went after her second serve. “At times, I don’t think either of us were serving that great. Our first-serve percentages were pretty low,” Pegula said. “Even with 16 aces, it just goes to show how good of a player she is because I was still barely able to win the match.”
“It was a battle ’til the end, as I expected,” Noskova said.
Gauff’s comeback. Gauff beat Marta Kostyuk 6-4, 7-5 in the first match of the day, winning the last six games after trailing 5-1 in the second set. She had taken a medical timeout for her lower back at 0-3 in that set, and later took a painkiller. Kostyuk, in the field as the alternate for Elena Rybakina, played on with a sore wrist from the first set. “I couldn’t really serve anymore,” Kostyuk said.
Gauff knew she needed help from Noskova. “Either way, I didn’t want to be sad walking off the court,” she said before the second match. It turned out to be her last match of the year.
How the tie was broken. Noskova, Pegula and Gauff all finished 2-1, and Kostyuk 0-3. With all three tied on wins and matches played, the group was decided on the highest percentage of sets won, the step set out in WTA Finals tiebreakers explained. Noskova won 5 of her 7 sets (71 per cent), Pegula 5 of 8 (63 per cent) and Gauff 4 of 7 (57 per cent). Gauff’s 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-2 win over Pegula on the opening day was not enough to offset her 6-3, 6-3 defeat by Noskova. The routes into Thursday are in our Group 1 scenarios.
The semifinals. Group winners play the runners-up from the other group on Saturday. Pegula plays Mirra Andreeva, the Group 2 winner, for the first time. Andreeva is the youngest WTA Finals semifinalist since Caroline Wozniacki in 2009. Noskova plays the winner of Friday’s match between Aryna Sabalenka and Elina Svitolina, which follows Andreeva against Karolina Muchova (12 p.m. PT) and decides second place in Group 2.
“It’s not every day you play someone that you’ve never played before,” Pegula said. “We’ve been playing a lot of matches, so it’s kind of funny we’ve just never run into each other.”
What it means. This is Pegula’s third WTA Finals semifinal, after 2023 and 2025, and she is the first player to win a WTA Finals match after saving a match point since Simona Halep in 2019. Noskova reaches the last four on her debut. Each leaves the round robin with 400 ranking points and $680,000. The final is on Sunday, 15 November.
