By McCarton Ackerman, USTA.com
Lauren Davis enjoyed a career breakthrough by reaching her first WTA final on Saturday at the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. The 22-year-old defeated wild card and fellow American Jessica Pegula during the night session, 6-2, 6-3.
Davis was especially impressive in her return games, accumulating 13 break points throughout the match (compared to five for Pegula) and converting on six of them. She also kept Pegula on the defensive by landing 60 percent of her first serves.
The Cleveland native will now play seventh seed Yanina Wickmayer in Sunday's final. Davis leads their head-to-head by 3-0, which includes wins earlier this year in Sydney and San Antonio.
Davis has played some of her best tennis of the year throughout the tournament. She defeated fellow American and French Open quarterfinalist Shelby Rogers in the opening round, then prevailed over No. 3 seed Monica Puig in the second round. Her previous best result on tour was a semifinal showing in January 2015 at the WTA event in Auckland.
Currently No. 122 in the WTA rankings, Davis will move to around No. 90 when next week’s rankings are released if she wins the tournament and just outside of the Top 100 if she finishes as runner-up.