American Jessica Pegula stunned top seed Iga Swiatek to make her first Grand Slam semifinal at the U.S. Open.
Pegula, the sixth seed, swept Poland’s Swiatek 6-2, 6-4 for her first win in a Grand Slam quarterfinal in her 7th attempt.
“I’ve been so many freaking instances (to the quarters),” Pegula said in an on-court docket interview. “I just kept dropping, but to superb players, I suggest, to girls that went on and received the tournament. I recognize all and sundry maintains asking me approximately it, but i was like, I don’t recognise what else to do. I just need to get there again and, like, win the in shape. So thank God i used to be capable of do it. And sooner or later, in the end, i will say semifinalist.”
Swiatek, the 2022 U.S. Open champ and four-time French Open winner, didn’t lose a hard and fast in her first 4 matches.
In opposition to Pegula, she had 41 unforced errors to 12 winners.
“i used to be able to type of jump on her simply early, and that i assume frustrate her,” Pegula said. “I should inform right away she become frustrated on the serve.”
In Thursday’s semifinals, Pegula gets Czech Karolina Muchova, who came back from a 10-month layoff due to a wrist injury to make the U.S. Open last four for a second consecutive year.
At 30, Pegula, the daughter of the Buffalo Bills owners, is the oldest U.S. woman to make her first Slam semifinal in the Open Era (since 1968).
In 2021, she cracked the world top 50 for the first time as she turned 27 — after bowing out in qualifying at Slams on 12 occasions and in the first round another six times.
Since the start of 2022, Pegula has made six Grand Slam quarterfinals and peaked at No. 3 in the rankings.
This year, she changed coaches after a second-round loss at the Australian Open in January, then missed time in the winter and spring due to injury.
“After Australia, I was not OK,” she said. “I was burnt out. I was tired. … Getting injured then kind of just made me more hungry, because I was like, OK, this sucks. I want to be playing. I’m ready. And to be kind of set back like that I think helped me come back.”
She will move back into the top five after the U.S. Open, supplanting Coco Gauff as the highest-ranked American.
Americans make up half of the semifinalists in the men’s and women’s draws — Pegula, Emma Navarro, Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe. The last time there were multiple American men and American women in the semifinals of the same Slam was the 2003 U.S. Open.