Pegula has worked his way up the rankings over the last few years and finally reached the long-awaited Grand Slam final.

It wasn’t easy – for years she has been asked about her difficulties in the quarter-finals, having previously reached the last eight of every major tournament but failing to progress in six attempts.

She split from her long-time coach David Witt at the beginning of the year before she struggled with injuries; neck and back problems interrupted her clay court season.

Pegula also had little joy at the Grand Slam tournaments: he missed the French Open and lost in the second round of the Australian Open and at Wimbledon.

She had put in a superb performance against an out-of-form Swiatek earlier in the week to end her quarter-final curse, but she got off to a terrible start against Muchova, much to the shock of the crowd.

With her family watching, including her father Terry, who owns the Buffalo Bills, Pegula made mistakes all over the court and Muchova scored 19 of the final 23 points to secure the win in Game 1.

The Czech, a wonderfully skilful player, looked set to put Pegula to flight when she broke serve in the first game of the second set and held on to take a 2-0 lead.

Pegula was then 30-40 down on serve and faced a double break deficit before Muchova missed a routine volley and the momentum was back on the American’s side.

Cheered on by the crowd, the two fought a break before Muchova played her worst tennis of the match and had to accept a break, so it went into the deciding set.

Although Muchova raised her level, Pegula was focused and rarely missed the baseline, earning a crucial early break before advancing when her opponent parried a shot that went too long.