Jessica Pegula could do no right at the outset of her first Grand Slam semifinal. Her opponent at the US Open on Thursday night, Karolina Muchova, could do no wrong.
‘I came out flat, but she was playing unbelievable. She made me look like a beginner,’ Pegula said. ‘I was about to burst into tears, because it was embarrassing. She was destroying me.’
Pegula managed to shrug off that sluggish start and come back from a set and a break down to defeat Muchova 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 for a berth in the final at Flushing Meadows. The No 6 seed , a 30-year-old from New York who has never played in a Grand Slam final, has won 15 of her past 16 matches and will meet No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka for the title on Saturday.
Sabalenka, last year’s runner-up to Coco Gauff at the US Open, returned to the championship match by holding off a late push to beat No 13 Emma Navarro of the United States 6-3, 7-6 (2).
Jessica Pegula reached her first ever Grand Slam final at the US Open on Thursday night
It will be a rematch of last month’s final at the hard-court Cincinnati Open, which Sabalenka won – the only blemish on Pegula’s post-Olympics record.
‘Hopefully I can get some revenge out here,’ said Pegula, whose parents own the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and NHL’s Buffalo Sabres.
‘Playing Aryna is going to be really tough. I mean, she showed how tough she is and why she’s probably the favorite to win this tournament.’
Things did not look promising for Pegula early Thursday. Not at all.
Muchova, the 2023 French Open runner-up but unseeded after missing about 10 months because of wrist surgery, employed every ounce of her versatility and creativity, the traits that make her so hard to deal with on any surface. The slices. The touch at the net. The serve-and-volleying. Ten of the match’s first 12 winners came off her racket. The first set lasted 28 minutes, and Muchova won 30 of its 44 points.
After grabbing eight of the first nine games, Muchova was a single point from leading 3-0 in the second set. But she couldn’t convert a break chance there, flubbing a forehand volley off a slice from Pegula, and everything changed.
Pegula went a set down against Karolina Muchova after making a torrid start on the night
But she made a strong recovery to see off Muchova and reach this weekend’s final
The 30-year-old had never made it past the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam until this week
‘I was thinking, “All right. That was kind of lucky. You’re still in this,”‘ Pegula said. ‘It comes down to really small moments that flip momentum.’
Quickly, the 52nd-ranked Muchova went from not being able to miss a shot to not being able to make one. And Pegula turned it on, heeding her two coaches’ advice to mix up her serves and her spins, to go after Muchova’s backhand more. Most of all, Pegula demonstrated the confident brand of tennis she used to eliminate No. 1 Iga Swiatek, a five-time major champion, in straight sets on Wednesday. Pegula had been 0-6 in major quarterfinals before that breakthrough.
It took Pegula a while to play that well Thursday, but once she got going, whoa, did she ever. All told, she collected nine of 11 games, a span that allowed her to not merely flip the second set but race to a 3-0 edge in the third.
‘I was able to find a way, find some adrenaline, find my legs. And then at the end of the second set, into the third set, I started to play like how I wanted to play. It took a while,’ Pegula said. ‘I don´t know how I turned that around.’
