NEW YORK: Jessica Pegula is back in the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament, which used to be her roadblock.
The way Pegula is playing at this US Open, it may be just another stop on the way back to the final.
The No. 4 seed rolled into the last eight by routing fellow American Ann Li 6-1, 6-2 in just 54 minutes on Sunday. She will face Barbora Krejcikova on Tuesday after the two-time Grand Slam champion fought off eight match points in a second set that ended with a 25-minute tiebreaker and beat Taylor Townsend 1-6, 7-6 (13), 6-3.
Townsend was trying to reach her first quarterfinal in her 31st Grand Slam appearance.
Pegula hasn’t dropped a set this year at Flushing Meadows, and only once was she even kept on court for more than 1 hour, 15 minutes.
“Probably the best match, honestly, I’ve played since, like, before Wimbledon I feel like from the start to finish. So that was encouraging,” Pegula said of Sunday’s victory. “I was just hitting the ball, doing everything well, executing my strategy very well and got through it pretty quick.”
Pegula had been 0-6 in Grand Slam quarterfinals before upsetting Iga Swiatek in that round last year. She went on to reach the final, where was defeated by Aryna Sabalenka. But she wasn’t sure her tennis was ready for a follow-up when she returned to New York.
She had lost four of her previous six singles matches coming into the US Open, and said she played so poorly while practicing with Sabalenka a few days before the tournament that she stopped early, opting instead for an escape room with some friends and a couple of drinks.
Things have certainly gotten better since.
“Like I said, I haven’t been feeling my best on court, so to be able to come back and make another quarterfinal here is something I’m definitely proud of,” Pegula said. “Of course, I want to go further and do more and win the tournament, but I feel like just on a personal kind of goal level, I’m happy with the way I’ve been able to kind of turn some of my tennis around the last few weeks.”
The 58th-ranked Li was the highest-ranked player Pegula has faced in the tournament, but the 25-year-old was overpowered in her first appearance in the round of 16 in a major. Pegula broke her all four times she served in the 25-minute first set, and she had just five winners against 19 unforced errors in the match.
Pegula will certainly be the fresher player Tuesday. Krejcikova, who missed nearly five months to begin the season with a back injury, rallied late to knock off 10th-seeded American Emma Navarro in 2 1/2 hours in the third round, then went 3 hours, 4 minutes Sunday — 98 minutes alone for the second set.
“I don’t worry. I’m not really thinking about it right now,” Krejcikova said. “I’m just really happy that I won today, because, I mean, also, if one point didn’t go my way, I would have been searching for flights.”
What else happened Sunday?
Carlos Alcaraz hit a behind-the-back shot to win a point in a 7-6 (3), 6-3, 6-4 victory over Arthur Rinderknech that made the Spaniard the youngest man in the Open era to reach 13 Grand Slam quarterfinals. Taylor Fritz, last year’s runner-up and the only American man remaining, beat No. 21 Tomas Machac in straight sets, while Novak Djokovic and Sabalenka also were on the schedule.
Who is on Monday’s schedule?
Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka will meet in a fourth-round matchup, six years after Osaka beat a then-15-year-old Gauff in the same round. Wimbledon champions Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek also will be in action as the remaining quarterfinal matchups are set. Venus Williams and Leylah Fernandez will play their third-round women’s doubles match against the No. 12-seeded team of Ekaterina Alexandrova and Zhang Shuai.
