By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Saturday September 6, 2024
New York—After years of toiling in relative obscurity, late-blooming Jessica Pegula rose up the rankings to join the elite, starting in 2021. The Buffalo, NY native reached six major quarterfinals from 2021 to 2023, but she lost them all – and still wasn’t satisfied.
It would have been easy for Pegula to accept that she wasn’t good enough. Or keep going with what made her a Top 10 player. But she did the opposite. Pegula bet on herself in 2024, parting ways with longtime coach David Witt in the hopes that she might find a new way. The missing ingredient, she felt, might be out there, and how would she know what it was if she didn’t try?
“I just felt like I needed to take some chances,” she told reporters at Indian Wells in March. “I’m 30 – not that being 30 is the end – and I think I just didn’t want to look back and be like ‘maybe I should have tried someone else, or tried something different.’”
At the beginning, Pegula’s new beginning wasn’t pretty. She had trouble winning matches with her new coaching tandem (Mark Knowles and Mark Merklein), and lost in the second round at both majors she played. There were also injuries.
By springtime it was hard to see the American as an elite threat. Perhaps her best days were behind her?
But Pegula still believed.
She took time off this summer, skipping the Olympics to recharge, and she has been a true force since the North American hard court season kicked off. After winning her sixth career title at Toronto, she reached the final at Cincinnati and headed to New York with a full head of steam.
Here in New York she has fulfilled her lifelong dream – reaching a Grand Slam final on home soil.
Pegula is the oldest American woman in the Open Era to make a maiden Grand Slam final, and the third American woman aged 30 or over to make a US Open final, joining Serena Williams and Martina Navratilova.
She defeated Karolina Muchova in the semifinals, after taking out World No.1 Iga Swiatek in the quarterfinals to end her run of futility in Grand Slam quarterfinals.
“It's amazing,” she said after toppling Muchova by winning 12 of the final 16 games (after losing the opening set). It's a childhood dream. It's what I wanted when I was a kid. It's a lot of work, a lot of hard work put in. You couldn't even imagine how much goes into it.
“It would mean the world to me obviously (to win the title). I'm just happy to be in the final, but obviously I want to win the title.”
Pegula displayed courage, electing to challenge herself rather than accepting the status quo. Now, she’s a Grand Slam finalist. Even if it was part of her grand plan, she admits that it’s still a bit surprising.
“If you would have told me at the beginning of the year I'd be in the finals of the US Open, I would have laughed so hard, because that just was where my head was, was not thinking that I would be here,” she said. “So to be able to overcome all those challenges and say that I get a chance at the title Saturday is what we play for as players, let alone being able to do that in my home country here, in my home slam. It's perfect, really.”
Pegula will continue her magical run against Aryna Sabalenka in the final on Saturday. Whether she wins or not, her success at the 2024 US Open has been inspiring. And a lesson to all about never settling for anything less than your best.