NEW YORK – Jessica Pegula overcame a slow start to come back from a set and a break down to defeat Karolina Muchova 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 at the U.S. Open on Thursday night to book her first place in her Grand Slam final.
No. 6 seed Pegula, a 30-year-old from New York, has won 15 of her last 16 matches and will face No. 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka for the title on Saturday.
Things didn’t look promising for Pegula at first: Muchova, the 2023 French Open runner-up but unseeded after sitting out about 10 months due to wrist surgery, used every ounce of her versatility and creativity, the qualities that make her so difficult to beat on any surface.
The slices. The touch at the net. The serve-and-volley. Ten of the first twelve winners of the match came from her racket. The first set lasted 28 minutes and Muchova won 30 of the 44 points.
“I was completely exhausted, but she played unbelievably. She made me look like a novice,” Pegula said. “I was about to burst into tears because I was embarrassed. She destroyed me.”
Muchova won eight of the first nine games and was one point away from a 3-0 lead in the second set. But she failed to capitalize on a break chance and botched a forehand volley, and everything changed.
“I thought, ‘Okay. That was kind of lucky. You’re still in it,'” Pegula said. “It’s really little moments that turn the momentum around.”
Muchova, seeded 52nd, quickly went from missing a single shot to hitting a single shot. And Pegula upped the ante, demonstrating the confident brand of tennis that she used to eliminate No. 1 Iga Swiatek, a five-time major winner, in straight sets on Wednesday. Before this breakthrough, Pegula had lost 6-0 in the quarterfinals of majors.
It took a while for Pegula to play so well on Thursday, but once she got going, she was really good, winning nine of 11 games in total, a period that allowed her to not only turn the second set around, but also take a 3-0 lead in the third.
Muchova, a 28-year-old Czech who had not dropped a set in the tournament up to that point, began to falter. After scoring 7 of 7 points at the net in the first set, she made 11 of 19 in the second. After only seven unforced errors in the first set, she made 19 in the second.
And all the while, the crowd in Arthur Ashe Stadium, which had been rather indifferent at the beginning – except for the occasional shout of “Come on, Jess!” – was going wild.
It was the 25th women’s semifinal at the US Open in the Open Era in which the first set was won 6-1 or 6-0; before Thursday, only three women had lost the first set by this score and won again – Sabalenka (2023), Victoria Azarenka (2020) and Svetlana Kuznetsova (2004).
Pegula’s victory means that an American will be present in both the women’s and men’s finals. This is the first time this has happened at a major tournament since Wimbledon in 2009. The last time this happened was at the US Open in 2002. That year, Serena Williams defeated Venus Williams and Pete Sampras defeated Andre Agassi.
ESPN Stats & Information and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
