Pegula takes only 49 minutes to dispatch tired Samsonova in Montreal final

Jessica Pegula has fired a pre-US Open warning shot to the WTA Tour, annihilating a weary Luidmila Samsonova 6-1, 6-0 in the Canadian Open final on Sunday.

The American No 1 benefited from an extra day’s rest, with Samsonova being required to play her semi-final earlier on Sunday, before coming back out to contest the Montreal final a few hours later.

Playing back-to-back matches was clearly too much for the Russian, who looked hapless in the face of Pegula’s clean hitting.

Pegula wins more than twice as many points than Samsonova

Statistically, Jessica Pegula led this match in every possible way.

The American won 100% of her first serves, crushed 16 winners and made only three unforced errors, breaking Samsonova five times.

Her opponent, on the other hand, managed only six winners compared to a total of 22 unforced errors.

The end result was as imbalanced as a tennis match can get—over in 49 minutes, with Pegula winning 51 points to Samsonova’s 21 points.

Scheduling, or pure domination from Pegula?

In her on-court post-match comments, Jessica Pegula said that while she was thrilled to win another Masters 1000 title, this wasn’t the way she hoped it would happen.

Naturally, there will be plenty of discussion about how much of a role the Canadian Open scheduling had to play in this one-sided result. While Pegula played her semi-final early on Saturday afternoon, Samsonova had her match delayed by rain, with the match eventually being pushed to Sunday afternoon.

That clash went three sets, with Samsonova eventually prevailing over Elena Rybakina 1-6, 6-1, 6-2. Even then, Rybakina was unhappy with the scheduling, commenting after the match:

“I feel destroyed just because of the scheduling and the whole situation. I’m not really happy about it.”

Rybakina went on to call the WTA leadership “unprofessional” and “a little bit weak for now.”

Undoubtedly the scheduling had some role to play in Pegula’s victory, but whether or not it altered the ultimate result, is a moot point.

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