Pegula stops Badosa, moves into last 4 at Charleston

American Jessica Pegula, the top seed, beat Spaniard Paula Badosa, the No 12 seed, 6-3, 7-6 (6) to reach the semi-finals of the Charleston Open at the Family Circle Tennis Center on Friday night.

Pegula, ranked No 3, will face Swiss Belinda Bencic, the No 4 seed, next.

The American improves to 22-6 on the season and 2-0 against Badosa – she reaches the semi-finals at Charleston for the first time in five career appearances.

Badosa rallied from a break down late in the second, and moved ahead briefly at 6-5, but Pegula responded by holding serve to force a tiebreak, before closing out the contest on her second match point.

All four seeds into the semis

The top four seeds – Pegula, No.2 seed Ons Jabeur, No.3 seed Daria Kasatkina and No.4 seed Belinda Bencic – have reached the semis at Charleston. It marks the first time that each of the top four seeds have reached the semis at a WTA 500-level event in over a decade.

Ahead of her victory, the American won against Russian Anna Blinkova (6-2, 6-0) and edged out Romanian Irina-Camelia Begu, the No 15 seed (7-5, 4-6, 6-4).

Badosa, ranked No 33, defeated Egyptian Mayar Sherif (6-3, 6-1), Canadian Leylah Fernandez (7-5, 7-6 (6)) and Russian Diana Shnaider (6-1, 6-3) earlier in the tournament.

Charleston WTA 500, other last 8 results (Family Circle Tennis Center, clay, USD 780.637, most recent results first):

• Belinda Bencic beat Ekaterina Alexandrova (7): 6-3, 6-3
• Daria Kasatkina (3) beat Madison Keys (9): 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-2
• Ons Jabeur (2) beat Anna Kalinskaya: 6-0, 4-1 ret.