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NEW YORK – Jessica Pegula pulled off a major upset by beating world No. 1 Iga Swiatek 6-2, 6-4 on Wednesday to win her first Grand Slam quarterfinal at her seventh attempt.
“I had a lot of tough times, I kept losing,” Pegula told the crowd. “I know everyone asks me about it, but I felt like I didn’t know what to do. All I needed to do was get there again and win the match. So thank God I was able to do that. And finally — finally! — I can say I’m in the semifinals.”
Her win ensures that multiple American men and women will reach the US Open semifinals, the first time that has happened since 2003 (Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick; Lindsay Davenport and Jennifer Capriati).
The 30-year-old American, ranked sixth in the world, has won 14 of her last 15 matches and will make her first Grand Slam semi-final appearance on Thursday against unseeded Czech Karolina Muchova.
Neither Muchova nor Pegula have dropped a set so far, the first time more than one woman has done so at this stage of the tournament since 2014 (there were three women that year: Serena Williams, Peng Shuai and Ekaterina Makarova).
“I know she has a lot of experience in the Grand Slams,” Pegula said of Muchova, whom she beat at the Cincinnati Open last month. “I might be worried about that when I wake up in the morning.”
The other women’s match on Thursday will also see American 13th seed Emma Navarro in the semifinals of the major, against second seed Aryna Sabalenka, who has won the past 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: No. 12 Taylor Fritz faces No. 20 Frances Tiafoe on Friday.
Pegula’s lopsided win was a surprise, but she believed this day would come.
“I knew I could do it. I just had to do my best and give it my best and not get discouraged. And luckily I felt like I was able to capitalize on some things that she wasn’t doing well early on, and then I was able to ride that momentum throughout the match,” she said.
Swiatek didn’t perform well in the first set, and her forehand was a real problem, as she made 22 of 41 unforced errors. Pegula made only 22 unforced errors in total and used great defense to force Swiatek to hit an extra shot.
Pegula repeatedly did what had seemed nearly impossible of late against Swiatek, who counts the 2022 US Open among her five Grand Slam titles and has topped the WTA rankings for most of the past two and a half years: break her serve.
Before Wednesday, Swiatek had lost just a pair of serve games in four matches at the tournament, both in the first round — and had not faced even a single break point in any of her last three matches.
But Pegula, whose parents own the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres, had little trouble there, especially early on, breaking Swiatek’s serve in his first two service games, both of which ended with double faults, and three of the first six games.
It helped that Swiatek couldn’t properly calibrate her first serve early on, putting just 2 of 12 – or 16.7% – into play at the start and just 36% in the opening set.
Although the matches continued to go her way, Pegula showed little tangible emotion, whether when she led 4-0 after just 21 minutes or won the set, which she greeted with a slight shake of her left fist as she walked to her seat on the sidelines.
Swiatek didn’t hide her thoughts well. She slammed her racket into the top of the net. She hit her right thigh when a forehand went wide, getting broken again and trailing 4-3 in the second set. Fifteen minutes later, the match was over.
“It was never easy to play against Jess,” Swiatek said. “She has a tough ball because she’s so low and so flat. She made a lot of mistakes.”
Pegula entered the day as the only top-10 player on the WTA Tour who has never reached a Grand Slam semifinal; 0-6 in her career Grand Slam quarterfinals, she was one loss away from the worst Grand Slam quarterfinal record for any woman in the Open Era, which is shared by three players (0-7).
During that 0-6 run, two of her losses came to Swiatek, and one to another No. 1, Ashleigh Barty.
Pegula was asked about the record in this round during her post-match interview on court after winning her fourth-round match, again in the post-match press conference, and again during a television interview before stepping out onto Arthur Ashe Stadium on Wednesday.
If all this weighed heavily on Pegula, she didn’t let it show.
ESPN Stats & Information and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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