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.
Muchova won eight of the first nine games and was just 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.
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. Pegula lost eight of the first nine games of the match, but won 12 of the last 16 games to advance to her first major final.
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.
