NEW YORK (AP) — The questions didn’t stop for Jessica Pegula: Why was she trailing 0-6 before her Grand Slam quarterfinal? US Open Matchup against No. 1 Iga Swiatek? What could Pegula do about it?

Came up during her on-court interview after winning the previous round. And again at the press conference afterward. And again during a brief television interview just before she took the court at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Wednesday night.

If all this was weighing on Pegula, the 30-year-old American did not let it show and caused a major upset by easily defeating Swiatek 6-2, 6-4 in Flushing Meadows to qualify for the semifinals of a major tournament for the first time.

“There were so many damn times and I just kept losing,” said Pegula, who has won 14 of her last 15 matches, all on hard courts. “I know everyone keeps asking me about this, but I thought, ‘I don’t know what else to do. I just have to get back there and win the match.’ So thank God I did it. And finally – finally! – I can say, ‘Semifinalist.'”

She is confronted unseeded Karolina Muchova from the Czech Republic on Thursday for a place in the final.

Muchova, the Second after Swiatek at the French Open 2023made it into the last four in New York for the second time in a row with a 6-1, 6-4 victory over the number 22 seed Beatriz Haddad Maia early Wednesday.

“I know she has a lot of experience in going far in Grand Slam tournaments,” the No. 6 seed Pegula said of Muchova, whom she beat at the Cincinnati Open last month. “That’s something I might think about when I wake up in the morning.”

In the other women’s match on Thursday, an American will also make her debut in an important semifinal: number 13 Emma Navarroagainst No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka, who has won the last two Australian Open titles. Sabalenka lost to Coco Gauff in the 2023 final in New York; Navarro ended Gauff’s title defense in the fourth round.

There are also two Americans in the men’s semifinals, but they will face each other: Taylor Fritz (number 12) will face Frances Tiafoe (number 20) on Friday. The other men’s duel that day is Jack Draper (number 25) against Jannik Sinner (number 1) or Daniil Medvedev (number 5), the last former US Open winner in the field.

Pegula’s one-sided victory was surprising, but she never believed this day would ever come.

“I knew I could do it. I just had to go out there and play my game and not get frustrated,” she said. “Luckily, I felt like I was able to take advantage of some of the things she wasn’t doing so well in the beginning and then carry that momentum throughout the game.”

Swiatek served poorly in the first set and her forehand was a real problem, with 22 of her 41 unforced errors coming on that side. Pegula made just 22 unforced errors in total and used excellent defense to force Swiatek to hit an extra shot time and time again.

Pegula has recently repeatedly achieved the almost impossible against Swiatek, who counts the 2022 US Open among her five Grand Slam titles and has led the WTA rankings for most of the past two and a half years: she managed to break her serve.

Through Wednesday, Swiatek had lost just two service games in four matches in the tournament, both in the first round – and in her last three matches she had not faced a single break point. That is one of the reasons why the 23-year-old Pole was listed as a -350 moneyline favorite against Pegula, according to BetMGM Sports Betting.

But Pegula, whose parents own the Buffalo Bills in the NFL and the Buffalo Sabres in the NHL, had little trouble in that regard, especially early on. He broke each of Swiatek’s first two service games, both of which ended in double faults, and in three of the first six games.

It helped that Swiatek was unable to calibrate her first serves properly at the beginning and only managed 2 out of 12 – 16.7% – in the beginning, and in the first set it was only 36%.

Even as the matches continued to go in her favor, Pegula showed little discernible emotion, neither when she secured a 4-0 lead after 21 minutes nor when she won the set, which she greeted with a slight shake of her left fist as she walked to her seat on the sidelines.

Swiatek couldn’t hide her thoughts so well. She slammed her racket against the top of the net. She hit her right thigh after a forehand shot flew wide, was broken again and she was down 4-3 in the second set.

Fifteen minutes later it was over.

After the defeat against Gauff In the semifinals of the 2023 US Open, Muchova required surgery on her right wrist in October and was off the tour for about 10 months until she returned in June this year. This was the latest in a series of injuries for Muchova, who described it as “one of the worst I’ve ever had”.

“When I look back now,” she said, “I think, ‘Oh, time has flown by and I feel strong again.'”

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