By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Saturday, August 31, 2024
Jessica Pegula scored her 12th win in her last 13 matches charging into her third straight US Open fourth round.
Photo credit: Garrett Ellwood/US Open/USTA
NEW YORK—Demonstrative displays drain Jessica Pegula.
A streaking Pegula is going to have to work on her celebration game after rolling into the US Open second week.
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Pegula picked apart Jessica Bouzas Maneiro 6-3, 6-3 to advance to the Flushing Meadows fourth round for the third straight season.
It is Pegula’s 12th win in her last 13 matches and propels her into a fourth-round meeting with Diana Shnaider.
The 18th-seeded Shnaider stomped former French Open finalist Sara Errani 6-2, 6-2 in 62 minutes. Shnaider won 10 of the 13 points played on Errani’s second serve and broke serve five times.
The fourth-round match is a rematch of the Toronto semifinals, which Pegula won 6-4, 6-3 after Shnaider surprised reigning US Open champion Coco Gauff.
The 2022 US Open quarterfinalist Pegula tuned up for New York successfully defending her Canadian Open crown and reaching back-to-back finals in Toronto and Cincinnati, where she fell to Aryna Sabalenka in the final.
Down a break in both sets in her second-round win over Sofia Kenin, Pegula returned to the practice court after that 7-6(4), 6-3 sweep to refine her return game.
Today, Pegula set the tone on serve winning 25 of 28 first-serve points and saving three of four break points.
Controlling baseline exchanges, Pegula won nine of the first 12 games before Bouzas Maneiro, who toppled defending Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova at SW19 last month, answered with a three-game run to level the second set at 3-all.
Then a proactive Pegula put the hammer down. Pegula charged through 12 consecutive points closing her third straight-sets win of the tournament in 70 minutes.
Apart from bouncing her racquet during her second-round win over Kenin, the Buffalo-born baseliner continues to cruise through the American summer hard-court season with calm efficiency.
Pegula said there’s a reason she’s a bit more stoic than her high-energy compatriots, including defending champion Coco Gauff and former semifinalist Frances Tiafoe: showing too much fire depletes her fuel tanke.
“I think a lot of people usually tell me that they're jealous with how even-keel I can be during a match,” Pegula said. “So, yeah, I think I might be more entertaining. It maybe would be more fun if I could be a Ben or even a Coco or a Tiafoe, but I just can't. Sometimes, too, even when I do get really fired up, for me it makes me tired, and I'm, like, exhausted. I'm, like, this is exhausting because I'm having to exert so much emotion that I'm not -- that's not how I am.
“I just try to stay in my little personality bubble I guess.”