Pegula Upends Top-Seed Swiatek To Reach First Grand Slam Semifinal
The proverbial monkey is now off of her back.
American Jessica Pegula can now say she is a major semifinalist after she knocked off top-seed and five-time major champion Iga Swiatek 6-2, 6-4 on Wednesday evening, securing her place in the final four at a Grand Slam for the first time.
“I would like to say I’m so happy that you guys cannot ask me about making it to the semis,” said Pegula at the onset of her press conference. “It wasn’t even a me thing. It was more people asking me. I’m really happy to be through to the semifinals.”
Entering Wednesday’s showdown with Swiatek, the Buffalo native was 0-6 in her previous major quarterfinals, a record she was asked about frequently throughout the last year. But she played with a purpose right from the start against Swiatek and demonstrated early that this wouldn’t be like her previous chances at a semifinal appearance.
Helped out by a sloppy start from Swiatek, Pegula broke her opponent in the first and third games of the set, each time securing the break thanks to a double-fault from the world number one as Pegula built a big enough lead to close out the opening set.
“I think today I wanted to come out playing the way I wanted to play,” said Pegula. “I had an idea in my mind of what I learned from the last time I played her at [the WTA] Finals and play kind of within myself and then just see where she was at. I could tell right away she was frustrated on the serve.”
Swiatek took a bathroom break in between sets and came out playing much sharper in the second set, but Pegula was up to the task. At 3-3 in the second, Pegula dug in on Swiatek’s serve which produced the longest game of the match, eventually nailing down the break thanks to back-to-back backhand errors from her opponent.
“I thought I played a really clean match, served pretty well, returned well,” said Pegula. “I feel like I didn’t really do anything that bad, and was able to kind of jump on her really early and I think frustrate her, and was able to keep my level even when she picked it up in the second set.”
Serving for the match at 5-4, things got dicey after Pegula established a 40-0 advantage only to see Swiatek respond with two consecutive points. But this night belonged to the American, and one final backhand error from Swiatek would sail wide to seal the deal for Pegula.
It’s the biggest win of Pegula’s career, who entered the U.S. Open playing some of her best tennis after a title in Toronot and runner-up finish in Cincinnati. She has not dropped a set thus far in New York, and will face Czech Republic’s Karolina Muchova, who defeated 22nd seeded Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia 6-1, 6-4 in the day’s first quarterfinal.
The two met just a couple of weeks in Cincinnati, where Pegula came back from a set down to win in the opening round.
“I think she’s really great for the game and the way she plays is really fun. She’s tough, great athlete, like I said, doesn’t have a lot of weaknesses, and has been deep in these slams before,” said Pegula about Thursday night’s matchup. “We had a tough match in Cincy, and I’ll try to look back at that match at what I did well and what I need to do tomorrow night. I’m sure, you know, I think our level, both of our levels will probably be a little bit higher than that match. Yeah, we’ll see how it goes.”
The other semifinal will see Pegula’s compatriot Emma Navarro play Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus.
