DC Open WTA Day Four Round-Up | Jessica Pegula set for another thriller with Anna Kalinskaya in Quarter-Final showdown

Jessica Pegula will face off against Anna Kalinskaya again in the DC Open Quarter-Finals after they both went the distance during their latest clashes in Washington. Albeit Pegula won't want to face Kalinskaya given that despite Kalinskaya not being on the right side, she has taken all five matches the distance.

Both players came from a set down in their second round wins on Thursday at the DC Open in Washington, they will have a chance to go from six from six as they meet again Friday.

Pegula lost the first set against Magdalena Frech then the American swept aside the Pole 3-6, 6-3, 6-0. She didn't get off to the best start and committed 14 unforced errors and landing just 36% of her first serves. She made the necessary adjustments and took 12 out of the last 15 games and saw off Frech in the decider. She hit 15 winners in the final set against just three unforced errors and hit 42 winners. Her first-serve percentage touched to 55% by the end of the tie.

"My first-serve percentage was 36%. For those of you that maybe are not tennis people, that is not good," Pegula said. "I'm probably not going to win the match if that continues. So to be honest, I was really just focusing on that and trying to go after it. It's hard the first week with the new balls -- they're pretty light.

"When you feel good, you can serve really well, which I did at the end. But if you're a little hesitant, they can kind of fly, you get a couple double faults, and it gets weird."

Albeit Pegula wasn't exactly a fan of facing off against Kalinskaya next. A player who she is known not to be a fan of and she made light of it joking that the fans were going to be in for a treat no doubt when they face off.

"I saw her score before I came out here, and I'm like, sorry Anna, but I was kind of hoping I wasn't going to have to face you because we literally always play three sets," Pegula said. "We always have crazy matches. We had a really tough match here in the semis when I won my first title, and we've played so many times that we just laugh. We're like, oh, here we go again. So you're in for a treat, I guess, is what I'm trying to say."

The story of Kalinskaya was that she saw off Janice Tjen albeit it was a real of attrition. She has made it 13-3 in four appearances at the tournament. She reached the final last year before losing out to Leylah Fernandez. She kept her hopes alive to reach the final again and seal a first WTA singles title.

She was a point away from the exit door before clawing it back to win 1-6, 6-3, 7-6(7) to advance to the Quarter-Finals. Her reward for such a match was a rematch of the 2019 semi-final when Pegula won 6-1 in the decider en route to her first career title. Kalinskaya will look to flip that script on Friday with a second win over the American potentially sending her forth.

Elina Svitolina is also through sealing a straight sets win over Polina Kudermetova albeit it wasn't exactly easy for the Ukrainian. Given their ranking difference as well as Svitolina's prowess on the surface, it was seen as a real potentially easy job. But Svitolina had to work for it.

She won the opening set through a tie-break after initially going 2-0 down against Kudermetova. Kudermetova flipped it back towards 5-3 and looked likely to take the set. But she spurned set point and Svitolina took it 7-4 in the decider breaking for a tie-break.

The second saw Svitolina lead going 3-2 up and that proved vital as she held for 4-2 up albeit there was always the issue that Svitolina wasn't emphatic throughout most of the tie and so Kudermetova was always lurking. She survived break points to go 5-3 up before she finally sealed the deal 6-4 to seal the win and not prolong the tie.

She now faces Alexandra Eala tomorrow. Diana Shnaider who still plays doubles with Venus Williams is also through. She swept aside Potapova 6-1, 6-2 in under an hour. The World No.18 now gets to duel with Liudmila Samsonova and faces the winner of Pegula or Kalinskaya. High stakes tennis at it's finest.