‘Never thought I’d be good at this’ – Pegula reaches semis

US Open 2025

Dates: August 24 through September 7 in Flushing Meadows, New York

After sweeping Barbora Krejcikova aside to reach the US Open semi-finals, Jessica Pegula claims she had no idea how comfortable playing in big Grand Slam competitions would be.

The fourth-seeded American will face either defending champion Aryna Sabalenka or Marketa Vondrousova in a match that she won 6-3, 6-3, to advance to the last four.

After recovering from a set-down and saving eight match points against Taylor Townsend in the previous round, Czech Krejcikova, a two-time Grand Slam singles champion, turned up against a risky opponent.

However, for the second year in a row, an impressive Pegula, who has not dropped a set in this case, made restrained progress to the semi-finals in New York.

“I feel very at ease. She said it’s crazy to feel this at ease with the craziest crowd and world’s best players on the biggest court.

Pegula entered New York in poor form, having only won two of her previous four matches and having lost four of her first six major matches.

The quarter-finals presented a different challenge than the routine victories over Mayar Sharif, Anna Blinkova, Victoria Azarenka, and Ann Li.

Pegula has previously struggled with this situation; her only other Grand Slam singles draw came last year when she reached the US Open final.

Pegula, however, was unruffled by her 1-6 record, leveraging Krejcikova’s slow start to take the game-to-three advantage, including breaking her heart in the third game.

She regularly attacked the net to keep her opponent off-balance while striking deep groundstrokes to entrap her opponent at the back of the court.

Even though Krejcikova won the game 4-3, she was left to rue a subpar serving performance, with a double fault at 40-30 opening the door for Pegula to break once more in the eighth game before closing the set.

Krejcikova continued to struggle with her serving, winning only 28% of her points on her second game of the opener, and Pegula was given a quick break by a pair of double faults at the start of the second set.

In the sixth game, Pegula gave up a double break lead as Krejcikova snuck another unlikely comeback, but she was also dealing with her own service issues.

However, she stayed composed and pegged the match point that Pegula seized at the first attempt thanks to Krejcikova’s seventh double fault of the afternoon.

“I believe I’ve been playing some excellent tennis,” she said. Pegula praised his performance and my solid play.