The top two Americans in both singles and doubles, playing partners Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff have enjoyed the best tennis seasons of their lives in 2022—both separately and together.
At the end of the week, they could compete against one another in an all-American singles final at the 2022 US Open. It would be the first in five years, since Sloane Stephens defeated Madison Keys in 2017.
As we enter the second week of the 2022 US Open, the singles tournaments have slimmed to eight competitors each. Only two American women remain in contention after No. 19 seed Danielle Collins lost her Monday night Round of 16 match against No. 6 seed Aryna Sabalenka, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.
Pegula, the world No. 8 and seeded as such at this tournament, has dropped just one set en route to the US Open quarterfinals this year. In her third-round match against Yuan Yue, she lost the second-set tiebreak in a tiebreak, 7-6(6), then bageled her opponent in the third. She kept rolling in the Round of 16 with a 6-3, 6-2 win against two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova.
The 27-year-old Buffalo native—parents Terry and Kim own Pegula Sports and Entertainment, whose assets include the Buffalo Bills of the NFL and the Buffalo Sabres of the NHL—has improved drastically over the last half-decade. In singles, she reached her first WTA final in Quebec in 2018; claimed her first tour-level title at the Washington Open in 2019; made the US Open’s third round in 2020; and fought her way into the Australian Open quarterfinals last year, reaching Round 3 at both Roland Garros and US Open. The WTA world singles rankings reflect her progress: Pegula was year-end No. 632 in 2017; No. 125 in 2018; No. 76 in 2019; No. 62 in 2020; and No. 18 in 2021.
This year, Pegula claimed quarterfinal berths at the Australian Open and Roland Garros, and was runner-up to Ons Jabeur in Madrid. She finally cracked the Top 10 this June, hitting a personal best world No. 8 and replacing Collins as the highest-ranked U.S. player.
After defeating No. 21 seed Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic in the US Open fourth round, a calm and collected Pegula talked to the media about how a different mindset has helped her tremendously in becoming a better, more consistent player. She emphasized minimizing frustration by recognizing when “things start feeling weird,” knowing when to change her racquet or switch up her playing style.
Pegula has learned from other athletes in other sports, reading books and watching interviews. During her press conference, she praised Ronda Rousey’s book, “My Fight/Your Fight."
“[Rousey] said: ‘My mom always told me you have to be the best in the world on your worst day,’” Pegula noted during her press conference. “And I always thought that’s just, to a tee, what champions do. I’ve really tried to adapt that mindset, because I can be kind of a perfectionist. So, even talking about tension, I’m always like: ‘It doesn’t feel right, like, nothing’s going right.’ And I can get kind of hard on myself. And I think I’ve done a really good job the last few years of realizing that … To be the best, you have to figure it out. That’s something I’ve tried to take from all of the GOATs in all their fields.”
Meanwhile, Floridian Gauff was all of 13 years old in 2017—but still managed her way to the US Open girls’ singles final, ultimately falling to compatriot Amanda Anisimova, 6-0, 6-2. The next year at the Queens tournament, she competed in the women's main-draw qualifiers. She rocketed to world No. 68 by the end of 2019; No. 48 by 2020; and No. 22 in 2021. The 18-year-old has only continued to succeed in 2022, competing against world No. 1 Iga Swiatek for the Roland Garros singles title and edging closer to the Top 10. She remains the youngest player in the WTA Top 100, currently world No. 12.
It took Gauff, who is seeded 12th at this year’s US Open, two hours to contain and eliminate China’s Zhang Shuai, 7-5, 7-5, in a Round 4 match. The 2022 Roland Garros singles and doubles runner-up now reaches the US Open quarterfinals for the very first time.
“I think I'm feeding off the momentum a lot,'' Gauff said post-match. "New York is bringing out a side of me that I haven't had since I was 15, so it's nice.''
Gauff was cheerful and alert in her subsequent press conference, discussing her “high quality” match. She half-joked that one of the few drawbacks of being a teenage tennis star was that she couldn’t catch The Weeknd in concert back home.
“I’m just taking it one match at a time,” she said when discussing her aspirations. “I feel like, when you focus too much on a goal, it can consume you a little bit.” She emphasized the importance of mental preparation, saying it was as key as physical practice. Her success at Roland Garros this year provided a big psychological boost.
For Gauff, playing alongside Pegula has also been fortuitous. The two advanced to the French Open women’s doubles final this year, and won a pair of titles this year at WTA 1000 tournaments in Qatar and Toronto. They were bounced, however, in the first round of doubles at the 2022 US Open—a far cry from Gauff’s runner-up status with then-partner Caty McNally last year.
For now, Gauff is now the world No. 1 in doubles, while Pegula is No. 6.
“[Jessica] doesn’t probably realize, but I’ve learned a lot from her, her mentality on the court,” Gauff said of their relationship. “We all know she’s one of the most relaxed, chill players on tour. And she doesn’t get too high or down emotionally. I try to model that a little bit.”
Even though both players have advanced to the upper echelons of professional tennis, they have only competed against each other in one WTA-level match: Pegula defeated Gauff in the opening round at Dubai this year, winning 6-4, 6-4.
“Playing each other in the finals [at the 2022 US Open], that’d be great,” Pegula said. “For American tennis, for us, it would be super fun. We’d probably be so tight … Of course, in a perfect world, we would want that to happen.”
Gauff echoed a similar sentiment after her fourth-round win.
“It would be pretty cool to have an all-American final,” she said. Still, with two more matches each over the next five days, she said the final is still a long ways away.
“I don’t want to look that far ahead,” Gauff laughed.
