Jessica Pegula becomes first top seed to win ATX Open singles title after win over Kessler

Posted by author March 2, 2025 Tennis

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Jay Plotkin
| Special to Austin American-Statesman

Jessica Pegula overcame McCartney Kessler — and herself — to win the ATX Open singles championship 7-5, 6-2 on Sunday at Westwood Country Club.

Pegula, the tournament’s top seed, struggled with both Kessler’s hard ground strokes and a constant breeze throughout the first set, but managed to pull it out in the end. Then she stepped up her game to pull away from Kessler, the No. 5 seed, in the second set.

Kessler had her chances in the first set only to commit errors on points that could have change the narrative. She overcame an early 2-0 deficit to take a 4-2 lead and had a chance to go up 5-3, but missed an easy volley after she had Pegula on the run. Pegula took advantage to even the set.

With Pegula serving at 5-5, Kessler misfired on two potential winners that might have delivered a service break. After Pegula held to take a 6-5 lead, Kessler suffered a double fault on set point to end the set.

Though Kessler recovered to break Pegula to open the second set, the world’s fourth-ranked player regrouped quickly, winning the next four games to take control and broke Kessler for a sixth time to close out the match. Pegula broke Kessler’s serve six times and won more than half of the points in Kessler’s service games.

The title marks Pegula’s first of the 2025 season. Kessler, meanwhile, had to regroup quickly following the match. She also reached the doubles final, where she and Zhang Shuai were to play Anna Blinkova and Yuan Yue.

“Obviously, it’s not the result I wanted,” Kessler said while being presented with her singles finalist trophy. “I hope I can redeem myself in a little bit.”