Jessica Pegula knocks Iga Swiatek out of U.S. Open for first Grand Slam semifinal

NEW YORK — In the latest stunning upset at the U.S. Open, Jessica Pegula took advantage of an off-night for Iga Swiatek and sent the world No. 1 tumbling out of the tournament. The world No. 6 won 6-2, 6-4, in just under 90 minutes, setting up a semifinal against Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic. She is the fourth American to reach the semifinals of the this year’s tournament in New York, joining Emma Navarro, Frances Tiafoe, and Taylor Fritz.

The last time that multiple American men and women made it to this stage of a Grand Slam tournament was 2003, also at the U.S. Open. Eventual champion Andy Roddick was joined by Andre Agassi, Lindsay Davenport, and Jennifer Capriati.

The win sent the sixth-seeded Pegula into her first Grand Slam semifinal. She had previously lost six quarterfinals, including two in each of the last two seasons, even as her ranking rose to No. 3 in the world and she won WTA Masters 1000 tournaments — just below the level of a Grand Slam.

“So many freaking times I’ve been losing,” Pegula said from the court when it was over.

Approaching her 30th birthday at the end of last season, Pegula fired David Witt, her longtime coach. He had guided her rise from outside the top 100 to within sniffing distance of the top of the sport in a five-year stint. Pegula wanted more. She wanted one of those trophies that Swiatek has been collecting like snow globes.

Pegula told herself that if she just kept getting into the last eight, a quarterfinal just might go her way. She’d let a golden opportunity slip away at Wimbledon in 2023, holding a 4-1 lead in the final set against Marketa Vondrousova, who had little in the way of Grand Slam pedigree and no history of success on grass. She won the whole thing, as it turned out.

Now, finally, 15 years after turning professional, she is two wins away from her first. She capitalized on an error-strewn performance from the world No. 1, which is becoming an unwelcome theme in her rare defeats. When these losses come, Swiatek sprays the ball everywhere except between the lines. She hit 41 unforced errors in 16 games.

“I wanted to come out playing the way I wanted to play,” she said when it was over, to take the measure of Swiatek’s level before deciding how small she would have to make her margins. She could tell immediately that Swiatek was off and getting frustrated, especially on her serve. She told herself to attack it. “I made it a point to really try and step in and try to keep doing that the entire time.”

It worked, even through the second set when Swiatek’s serve picked up but she could not find any rhythm off the ground.

“Usually I’m able to push it back or put pressure on myself, but today I just made too many mistakes,” Swiatek said.

This defeat was the five-time Grand Slam champion’s latest stumble in a frustrating summer. She has been on the losing end of battles at every tournament since her triumph at the French Open, which was her fourth title at Roland Garros and her third there in a row. It left no doubt that about her reputation as one of the greatest female clay-court players of the modern era.

Swiatek has been on shaky ground ever since she left her beloved red clay of Paris. She lost in the third round of Wimbledon to Yulia Putintseva, in a defeat that looked like a few other defeats, and a little bit like this one. Even when she briefly returned to clay for the Olympics, she put in a similar performance against Zheng Qinwen in the Olympic semifinals, before losing to Aryna Sabalenka in Cincinnati.

The long season has worn on Switek’s body and mind. She has earned that exhaustion, playing deep into all the clay tournaments she entered in the spring, winning three of them. Since then, the summer has become a slog, with her only consolation a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics, after losing her chance at gold.

GO DEEPER

Zheng Qinwen rose to the Olympic pressure in beating gold medal favorite Iga Swiatek

All the bad losses look basically the same. Her serve, which has recently evolved into a more serious weapon, doesn’t land in the court often enough. Her vaunted forehand, a terrifyingly efficient shot in the past three seasons, flies wildly off the court. The backhand, usually a steadying force, starts going off next, and Swiatek, often one of the game’s great problem solvers, just tries to hit the ball even harder, whether it is short in the court or deep on the baseline, expecting a different result that never comes.

Iga Swiatek’s groundstrokes let her down. (Al Bello / Getty Images)

Serving for the match, knowing that Swiatek had pulled rabbits out of her hat and come back from match point down at the French Open, Pegula stayed steady.
She put her serves in and let Swiatek’s errors — including one forehand return that nearly landed outside the tramlines, off a 65 mph second serve — bring her to three match points. Swiatek saved one with a crisp forehand winner across the court, and then another with an even crisper backhand down the line.

But then, like she had all night, she flew a rally backhand wide, and Pegula’s arms were in the air.

Pegula’s win put another star on a U.S. Open that has suddenly become an all-American affair. Tiafoe and Fritz will play one another in the semifinals Friday, the first all-American semifinal since 2005, guaranteeing that an American man will play in a Grand Slam final for the first time since Andy Roddick’s loss to Roger Federer, 16-14 in the fifth, at Wimbledon in 2009.

And yet, so much of the mountain remains.

In Muchova, Pegula will face one of the game’s great natural talents, a player who can float across and into the tennis court like few others when she is healthy, before ending points at the net like no one else. She has been for most of the season with a major wrist injury, but Muchova has quickly found her form this summer, and has yet to drop a set in New York.

Navarro will taken on Aryna Sabalenka, the two-time Australian Open champion, and arguably the world’s top hard-court player. She has been fierce all tournament and is playing as she did in January in Australia.

Either Jannik Sinner, the world No. 1, or Daniil Medvedev, the 2021 champion, are the most likely opponent for Tiafoe or Fritz in the men’s final.

All of them could use some of the opportunity that Pegula’s clinical ground game was solid enough to jump on Wednesday night.

“I was able to take advantage of some things she wasn’t doing well,” Pegula said.

(Fatih Aktas / Anadolu via Getty Images)