Jessica Pegula has not had the best season so far and that continues into
Indian Wells with a second round loss to
Anna Blinkova who forever is the spoiler with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 win for the Russian who moves through to face Diane Parry.
They sit in the same section as Caroline Garcia and Maria Sakkari who will face off in the third round and a big opportunity now awaits potentially for Blinkova or Parry with their potential Last 16 opponents both hit and miss.
Pegula also has been this year. She reached the semi-finals of the San Diego Open as top seed losing out to Marta Kostyuk in a title she would've been expecting to win but was claimed by Katie Boulter in the end. This though was the first tournament without David Witt who she dumped after the Australian Open and is now coaching Maria Sakkari who saw off Diana Shnaider in a comeback win earlier this evening.
She has instead switched to Mark Merklein and Mark Knowles who both cannot travel full time, but while she reached a semi-final in her first tournament back after a neck injury, she has floundered at Indian Wells. Blinkova who famously took down Elena Rybakina in the longest tie-break in Grand Slam history broke serve twice in the middle part of the opening set to go 5-2 up and Pegula let a break back opportunity go twice from 40-15 up and Blinkova sealed the set 6-2.
A usual Pegula match sees often it go either in her direction in the second or her opponent and it went hers as she broke to go 3-1 up and saved a break point chance to go 4-1 up. Blinkova fought back to 4-3. But the Russian couldn't hold her serve and Pegula went on to send it all the way from there. But she couldn't hold onto the momentum and could've lost a lot easier.
Blinkova went 5-1 up with Pegula not at the races and this continued albeit it was more on that Blinkova couldn't find the opportunity to get over the line with the American hanging on. But finally she got one opportunity on her serve and took it with ease.
