Jessica Pegula is back in her New York groove.
The Buffalo native, who is again taking her game to another level here on the blue courts in Flushing, needed just under an hour and a half to send two-time Grand Slam champion Barbora Krejcikova of Czechia packing, 6-3, 6-3, in the U.S. Open quarterfinals on Tuesday afternoon.
“I’m really comfortable coming out here,” she told the on-court reporter at Arthur Ashe Stadium after the match when quizzed about elevating her game here at her home slam.
Pegula, 31, has won nine singles titles (three this season), but has never won a Grand Slam. But she reached the final here last year before falling to Aryna Sabalenka in a tightly-contested title match, 7-5, 7-5. Now she stands one win away from repeating that feat, and two wins away from lifting a major trophy for the first time.
She faces a potential rematch with Sabalenka in the semifinals if the top seed is able to beat Marketa Vondrousova Tuesday night in the opening match of the night session.
“I mean, I think it would be cool to be able to get revenge, obviously,” Pegula said of getting another shot at Sabalenka.
Pegula’s path to a possible Slam is starting to feel very familiar to her dominant run here last year at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. In 2024, Pegula — the daughter of the owners of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills — didn’t lose a set until the semifinals.
“You know, this was my biggest accomplishment last year was just getting past the quarterfinals. Now I can say I’ve done it twice.”
She has yet to drop a set here this year in what she described post-match as a “favorable draw.”
“I think I haven’t really had to play anyone like matchup-wise as well that has really bothered me a ton, so I think that’s helped.”
Krejcikova was trying to go back-to-back-to-back against American opponents, but appeared to run out of steam against the No. 4 seed in the first match of the day at Arthur Ashe. Krejcikova, who has a French Open (’21) and Wimbledon (’24) title on her resume, had knocked off No. 10 Emma Navarro in three sets in the third round and then beat Taylor Townsend in an epic three-setter on Sunday after rallying from eight match points down to grab the second set in a wild 15-13 tiebreak.
But Pegula got the quick start she was aiming for and never let Krejcikova get a foothold in the match. And it was clearly not Krejcikova’s day as she whiffed on an easy overhead in the second game of the opening set to fall down 0-40. Pegula got the quick break and was off and running from there.
“I thought I played a really solid match again,” Pegula said of Tuesday’s “hot” start. “I thought I started off playing pretty aggressive, making her move a lot, and just kind of pressuring her serve as well. You know, luckily was able to kind of execute that throughout the whole match.”
Krejcikova, who has plummeted down the rankings to her current No. 62 after missing nearly six months because of a back injury, found herself under siege on just about every service game on this 75-degree, mostly sunny day in Queens.
“I didn’t let her get too comfortable,” Pegula said. And it showed. Krejcikova was broken in five of her nine service games and only won 65% of her first serves. But she rarely found success with her first serve, getting the ball in just 42% of the time. She finished with 28 forced errors and another 24 unforced errors.
Pegula’s second consecutive deep run at the U.S. Open comes after a tough summer that began with a first-round loss at Wimbledon, and then continued as the tennis calendar turned to the hard-court season. She lost in the second round at the D.C. Open, got bounced in the third round in Toronto and again in Cincinnati.
But the momentum is back as there is clearly something special about New York’s Grand Slam for Pegula.
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