Jabeur braves the rain and rallies past Kasatkina to reach Charleston final

Tunisian Ons Jabeur, the second seed, won against Russian Daria Kasatkina, the No 3 seed, 7-5, 7-5 to reach the final of the Charleston Open at the Family Circle Tennis Center on Saturday evening.

Jabeur, ranked No 5, will play the winner of the match between American Jessica Pegula, the top seed, and Swiss Belinda Bencic, the No 4 seed, next.

Jabeur stretches her winning streak to five matches against Kasatkina (5-2 overall) and improves to 8-4 overall on the season. Since the start of 2020, Jabeur (37-10) is the tied for the WTA lead in clay-court wins with Iga Swiatek (37-4).

Jabeur – I have to thank the rain delay

Jabeur and Kasatkina had to endure a four-hour rain delay in the first set. When they players returned, Jabeur had some ground to make up.

The Tunisian was down by a break but won the final four games of the opening set to take it 7-5.

She said it was a lot harder than it looked.

“She never lets you get a point easy,” Jabeur said of Kasatkina. “She makes you run all around the court – she’s such a competitor and it was a great match for both of us.”

The No 2 said the rain delay was actually helpful for her to reset her tactics against Kasatkina.

“I have to thank the rain to start with,” she said. “Because it allowed me to talk to my coach a bit and he gave me awesome advice. And to reflect about what happened in the first set.  My game was there, I just needed to find something small.

“I was more patient definitely after and I was building my point more and that really helped me.”

Ahead of her victory, the Tunisian beat Ukrainian Lesia Tsurenko (6-3, 6-3), American wildcard Caroline Dolehide (6-3, 7-5) and Russian Anna Kalinskaya (6-0, 4-1 ret.).

Kasatkina, ranked No 8, defeated American Madison Brengle (6-2, 6-1), American Bernarda Pera (6-3, 7-6 (3)) and American Madison Keys, the No 9 seed (6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-2) in the previous rounds of the Charleston tournament.

Charleston WTA 500, other semi-final result (Family Circle Tennis Center, clay, USD 780.637):

• Jessica Pegula vs. Belinda Bencic

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