The National Bank Open presented by Rogers has a new women’s champion and her name is Jessica Pegula.
The 29-year-old American, ranked no. 3 in the world, defeated world no. 18 Liudmila Samsonova 6-1, 6-0 on Sunday evening at IGA Stadium in Montreal to capture the second WTA 1000 title of her career.
She was dominant from start to finish against Samsonova, who defeated Elena Rybakina in the semi-finals earlier in the day, and barely put a foot wrong during the 49-minute contest. She put every aspect of her well-rounded game on full display to conclude a memorable week in impressive fashion. It’s a fitting ending for Pegula given that she had to beat her good friend Coco Gauff in the quarter-finals and upset Iga Swiatek in a thrilling semi-final encounter that saw her overcome a break deficit in the final set to earn her third triumph over the World No. 1. As for Samsonova, she was appearing in her first WTA 1000 final to cap a stellar run that included wins over world no. 2 Aryna Sabalenka, Belinda Bencic,and Rybakina.
Pegula joins Monica Seles (1995), Justine Henin (2003), Amélie Mauresmo (2004), and Bianca Andreescu (2019) as the players to have dropped the fewest games (1) in the singles final during the tournament’s rich history.
READ: JESSICA PEGULA HAS MADE CANADIAN COURTS FEEL LIKE HOME
Sunday’s victory caps an impressive three-year run at the National Bank Open for Pegula who also reached the semi-finals at the event in 2021 and 2022 before lifting the trophy in Montreal in 2023. She won her first WTA 1000 tournament last season in Guadalajara, and she now holds three career WTA singles titles. She has a special history with our Canadian tournaments, especially those played in Quebec. Most notably, she reached her first WTA final in Quebec City in 2018 in addition to making stops in Granby, Saguenay, and of course, Montreal. Not to mention that she told the crowd during her acceptance speech that her grandmother is from Montreal.
Now that the 2023 edition of the National Bank Open is in the books, make sure to reserve your place at the best price to attend the 2024 tournament when the best ATP players return to IGA Stadium from August 3-12.
Aoyama, Shibahara win National Bank Open crown in epic doubles final
Shuko Aoyama and Ena Shibahara are this year's National Bank Open presented by Rogers champions, overcoming Demi Schuurs and Desirae Krawczyk in a three-set thriller, 6-4, 4-6, [13-11].
The match was played on even terms throughout the first set, with both teams trading breaks in the seventh and eighth games before the all-Japanese duo was able to secure a crucial deciding point on their opponents' serves – and with it, the set.
Schuurs and Krawczyk, who recovered from 3-8 down in the match tiebreak of their semi-final clash on Saturday, were ready for another comeback effort, as the Dutch-American pairing battled back from an early break down to send the match into a deciding tiebreak.
With as little separating them in the tiebreak as throughout the match, Aoyama/Shibahara were ultimately victorious, missing out on one championship point at 9-8 before saving a pair of championship points themselves at 9-10 and 10-11. On their second attempt, the No. 7 seeds secured victory for their second WTA 1000 title as a pair and first since 2021 in Miami. MB
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