Jessica Pegula wins 3 sets and reaches the final of the US Open

NEW YORK – Jessica Pegula could do nothing right at the start of her first Grand Slam semifinal. Her opponent at the US Open on Thursday night, Karolina Muchova, could do nothing wrong.

“I was weak, but she played unbelievably,” Pegula said. “She made me look like a novice. I was about to burst into tears because I was embarrassed. She destroyed me.”

Pegula managed to shake off a slow start and recover from a set and break deficit to beat Muchova 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 and book a place in the final at Flushing Meadows. The sixth-seeded Pegula, a 30-year-old from New York, has won 15 of her last 16 matches and will face No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka for the title on Saturday.

It is a rematch of last month’s Cincinnati Open hard court final, which Sabalenka won – the only blemish on Pegula’s post-Olympic record.

“Hopefully,” said Pegula, “I can get some revenge out here.”

Pegula’s parents are owners of the Buffalo Bills in the NFL and the Buffalo Sabres in the NHL; her father was in the stands at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Thursday, as were her sister, brother and husband.

Things didn’t look good for Pegula early on this cool evening.

Muchova, who was seeded runner-up at the 2023 French Open but was unseeded after being sidelined for about 10 months due to wrist surgery, used every ounce of her versatility and creativity – 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 one point away from a 3-0 lead in the second set. But she missed a break chance and botched a forehand volley, and everything changed.

“I thought, ‘Okay. That was kind of lucky. You’re still in it,'” Pegula said. “It’s really little moments that turn the momentum around.”

Muchova, ranked 52nd in the world, was able to quickly go from a shot she couldn’t miss to one she couldn’t hit. And Pegula took it up a notch by following the advice of both her coaches to vary her serves and spins and attack Muchova’s backhand.

“She was everywhere,” Muchova said. “She started playing much better.”

Above all, Pegula demonstrated the confident style of tennis with which she eliminated No. 1 Iga Swiatek, a five-time major winner, in straight sets on Wednesday. Before this breakthrough, Pegula had lost 0-6 in the quarterfinals of majors.

It took Pegula a while to play so well on Thursday, but once she got going, she was unstoppable, winning nine of 11 games in total, a stretch that allowed her to not only turn the second set around but also take a 3-0 lead in the third.

“I found a way, found some adrenaline, found my legs. And then at the end of the second set, in the third set, I started playing the way I wanted to play. It took a while,” Pegula said. “I don’t know how I changed that.”

Muchova, a 28-year-old Czech, had not dropped a set in the tournament up to that point, but then she began to falter. After making 7 of 7 points at the net in the first set, she managed 15 of 19 points in the rest of the set. After only seven unforced errors in the first set, she had 33 in the second and third sets.

And the whole time, the crowd, which at the beginning was rather indifferent except for the occasional shout of “Come on, Jess!”, was going wild.

“To even get to the semifinals and feel that my game is there, that I can compete against the best and beat them, that’s something I didn’t know when it would come back and I feel like I’m playing at a good level,” Muchova said. “I’m healthy and I can play more tournaments this year. That’s actually the most important thing.”

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, when Serena Williams defeated Venus Williams and Pete Sampras defeated Andre Agassi.

ESPN Stats & Information and The Associated Press contributed to this report.