The top two seeds at the Bad Homburg Open both made it safely into the quarterfinals on Tuesday -- but via contrasting routes.
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BAD HOMBURG (GERMANY) — The top two seeds at the Bad Homburg Open both made it safely into the quarterfinals on Tuesday -- but via contrasting routes.
No. 2 Jasmine Paolini needed to navigate a host of set-point saves and match-point misses before overcoming Leylah Fernandez 7-6(8), 7-6(6) in 2 hours and 32 minutes, the joint second-longest two-set match of 2025 so far. No. 1 Jessica Pegula was thoroughly efficient in defeating qualifier Katerina Siniakova 6-3, 6-2 in 66 minutes.
Paolini's victory was a triumph of clutch play for the Italian. The tone was set in a seven-deuce opening game, which Fernandez eventually held, and from there, the momentum shifted back and forth between the pair. Paolini, volleying with panache, took a 4-2 lead, only for Fernandez to bounce back with a three-game run. At 6-5, the Canadian held her first set point, but Paolini came up with the shot of the match -- a terrific lob on the run to end a lung-busting rally -- to fend it off as per WTA.
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Another two set points for Fernandez came and went in the tiebreak before Paolini converted her second by coming out on top of another enthralling all-court exchange, foiling the former US Open runner-up with an unexpectedly short smash.
Paolini rode her momentum to a 5-2 lead in the second set, but Fernandez had upped her baseline aggression, particularly off her forehand wing. This began to pay off as she started to mount a remarkable comeback. Down 5-2, she staved off a first match point with an ace, then clawed her way back to level at 5-5. Fernandez escaped triple match point down 6-5 as Paolini's backhand let the Rome champion down, then was poised to force a third set as she held a double set point in the tiebreak.
But Fernandez was unable to convert either, and a relieved Paolini escaped with the last four points of the match in a row. She will next face either No. 7 seed Elina Svitolina or Beatriz Haddad Maia
Pegula and Siniakova have become frequent foes over the years, and their best battles have come on grass. Siniakova was a 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 victor in the 2021 Bad Homburg second round, the year she made her first of two finals here; last year, Pegula defeated the Czech 7-6(2), 3-6, 6-3 in the Berlin quarterfinals en route to her first grass-court title.
There was no such barnburner in their third encounter on the German lawns. Pegula was near-impenetrable on serve, dropping just four points behind her first delivery and facing just two break points all day. She advances to face either No. 5 seed Emma Navarro or wild card Naomi Osaka.