Jessica Pegula to challenge Iga Swiatek with low, flat hitting in Bad Homburg grass-court final

The third major tournament of the season, Wimbledon, begins next Monday.

Two days prior, Jessica Pegula and Iga Swiatek will clash in a mouth-watering WTA championship between two Top 10 competitors at the Bad Homburg Open.

🖥️📱 Stream Pegula vs. Swiatek live here on TennisChannel.com (estimated start time for Saturday, June 28 TBC)

For Swiatek, it’s new territory in making her grass-court final debut. For Pegula, it reaffirms her case as one of the viable contenders to go the distance at the All England Club and join the Grand Slam winners’ club.

Pegula confirmed the showdown when she battled past Linda Noskova, 6-7 (2), 7-5, 6-1. The Czech was two points from advancing, but having led 5-3 in the second set, couldn’t serve out the match in the following game after reaching deuce. Pegula ultimately claimed 10 of the final 11 games to deny the 20-year-old consecutive Top 10 victories (d. Mirra Andreeva) and improve to 5-0 in semifinals this year.

“She was serving really good and I just felt like I couldn’t get a read on it,” said Pegula after withstanding 15 aces.

“I finally was able to start reading it right at the very end there. I’m just happy I was able to put myself back in the match.”

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Earlier, Swiatek locked up a third consecutive straight-set win with arguably her most impressive performance of the week. Taking on 2024 Wimbledon runner-up Jasmine Paolini, the fourth seed converted five of 10 break points to dispatch her fourth-ranked opponent, 6-1, 6-3.

"I wasn't expecting to win this match, honestly, so I'm happy that I just did my job. I knew how I wanted to play and I just went for it,” reflected Swiatek. “I'm happy I kept the momentum going until the end of the match, Jasmine, you can't let her get back in the game because she's a fighter. I just wanted to go for it and go for my shots.

“We’re both pretty intense. I kind of understand how she wants to play because I also have a big topspin on my forehand and I like to step in on my backhand.”

Swiatek, through to her first final of 2025 thanks to her 50^th career Top 10 victory, moved to 5-0 in the pair’s head-to-head series that now includes wins on three different surfaces. On the subject of rivalries, the five-time major winner holds a 6-4 advantage over Pegula.

The American won their most recent showdown, an important one, when she ousted Swiatek at last year’s US Open to overturn a 0-6 record in major quarterfinals. All but one of their prior encounters occurred on hard courts, with Saturday’s matchup marking their first on grass.

“When she’s firing on all cylinders, she’s really, really good,” Pegula said of the Pole.

“I’ll try to use the best I can to the surface as well. I hit pretty low and flat. Hopefully that’ll help disrupt her rhythm a little bit. But we’ll see. She had a pretty dominant match today, it seemed like. It’ll be interesting.”

The Buffalo, N.Y. native memorably saved five championship points in Berlin last June against Anna Kalinskaya to capture her first grass-court crown.