NEW YORK — Jessica Pegula could do nothing right at the start of her first Grand Slam semifinal. Her opponent at the U.S. Open on Thursday night, Karolina Muchova, could do nothing wrong.
“I was discouraged, but she was playing amazing,” Pegula said. “She made me look like a beginner. I was about to burst into tears because it was so embarrassing. She was destroying me.”
Pegula overcame a shaky start and rallied from a set and a break down to beat Muchova 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 and book a place in the final at Flushing Meadows. Pegula, the 30-year-old No. 6 seed from New York, has won 15 of her last 16 matches and will face No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka for the title on Saturday.
It will be a rematch of last month's final at the Cincinnati hard-court Open, which was won by Sabalenka, the only blemish on Pegula's record after the Olympics.
“Hopefully,” Pegula said, “I'll be able to get some revenge here.”
Pegula's parents own the NFL's Buffalo Bills and the NHL's Buffalo Sabres; her father was in the stands at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Thursday, as were her sister, brother and husband.
Things did not look promising for Pegula in the early cool evening.
Muchova, the 2023 French Open runner-up but unseeded after being sidelined for about 10 months due to wrist surgery, used every ounce of her versatility and creativity, the traits that make her so difficult to play against on any surface.
The slices. The touch on the net. The serves and volleys. Ten of the first twelve winners of the match came with 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 leading 3-0 in the second set. But she failed to convert a break chance, missed a forehand volley and everything changed.
“I thought, 'Okay. You got lucky. You're still in this,'” Pegula said. “It all comes down to little moments that change the pace.”
The 52nd-ranked Muchova quickly went from not being able to miss a shot to not being able to hit one. And Pegula was off and running, following the advice of both her coaches to mix up her serves and her spin, and to go after Muchova's backhand.
“She was everywhere,” Muchova said. “She started playing a lot better.”
But more importantly, Pegula showed the confidence she displayed in knocking out world No. 1 Iga Swiatek, a five-time major champion, in straight sets on Wednesday. Pegula was 0-6 in major quarterfinals before that breakthrough.
It took Pegula a while to get going on Thursday, but once she got going, she was unstoppable. In all, she won nine of 11 games, a span that allowed her to not only turn around the second set, but also take a 3-0 lead in the third.
“I managed to find a way, find some adrenaline, find 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 me a while,” Pegula said. “I don't know how I managed to change that.”
Muchova, 28, of the Czech Republic, had never dropped a set at the tournament until then. But she began to falter. After scoring 7 of 7 points at the net in the first set, she shot 15 of 19 the rest of the way. After just seven unforced errors in the first set, she added 33 in the second and third.
And all the while, the crowd that had initially remained stagnant (save for the occasional shout of “Go, Jess!”) was roaring.
“To get to the semi-finals and feel like I'm up to par, that I can compete with the best, that I can beat them, is something I didn't know when I would feel again, 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 the most important thing.”
It was the 25th US Open women's semifinal in the Open era in which the first set ended 6-1 or 6-0; before Thursday, only three women had managed to recover after losing the first set by that score: Sabalenka (2023), Victoria Azarenka (2020) and Svetlana Kuznetsova (2004).
Pegula's victory means both the men's and women's finals will feature an American, the first time that has happened at a major tournament since Wimbledon in 2009. The last time it happened at the US Open was 2002; that year, Serena Williams defeated Venus Williams and Pete Sampras beat Andre Agassi.
ESPN Stats & Information and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
