After finally getting over the hump and reaching her first Grand Slam semifinal on her seventh attempt, Jessica Pegula was "flat."
Facing a resurgent Karolina Muchova on Thursday night in Arthur Ashe Stadium, Pegula found herself bamboozled by the Czech's all-court craft for the better part of an hour, and her own game wasn't delivering. She racked up eight fewer winners than a red-hot Muchova in the first set, and trailing 6-1, 2-0, could only watch from the back right corner of the court—pulled out there by another perfectly-angled inside-in forehand from the Czech—as Muchova closed towards the net on break point, ready to put away a makeable forehand volley on a ball that Pegula dipped towards her shoes. With the court wide open, Muchova missed the shot long.
It gave Pegula the lift she needed—in the moment, and for the long haul.
"[That] seemed like that was a big momentum swing," Pegula confessed post-match after coming all the way back to defeat the former Top 10 player, 1-6, 6-4, 6-2, to reach the US Open women's final. "I was able to just hold on to my serve there and find a way. I think the crowd really helped me get some adrenaline into me. ... I think just that game, really holding that game I was able to just find some adrenaline and get my legs under me. Just [tried] and chase down every single ball that I could.
"After that, once I had some rhythm and started feeling more comfortable I was able to maybe play a little bit more aggressive, try and come in a little bit more, attack the serve, dictate with my forehand a little bit, and kind of find my game after that."
Nearly two hours later, with more than a few turns in between, Muchova's final forehand missed its mark, and Pegula officially punched her ticket into Saturday's showpiece where she'll square off with Aryna Sabalenka for the eighth time overall, and second in as many months.
"I feel like before the [quarterfinal] match with Iga [Swiatek], I was way more nervous, and today I was just, like, whatever. Maybe that was bad, because I clearly came out super flat," Pegula continued. "I was trying to think that maybe it was good that I felt really loose, but clearly I was a little too loose.
"I don't really know what happened. Every day, you feel different. Some days you come out you feel great; some days you come out and you are super flat. You just have to deal with it. ... It's how you adapt to that situation, and I think obviously I was able to adapt just in the nick of time tonight."
Winning the US Open, something Pegula describes as a "childhood dream," has never been closer, and despite being the oldest American woman in the Open Era to reach a major final for the first time, the 30-year-old says that she never once considered that her window to achieve greatness in the game closed.
It's the kind of mentality that transformed her from a 25-year-old challenger in search of a breakthrough to one of the sport's elite players in five years' time, and the same one she's showcased in a 2024 season that was marred by injuries to her neck and rib early (the latter made her miss the entire clay-court spring)—a year that has since aged like a fine wine.
"I don't know if I thought it's not going to happen, but there's definitely moments where either, like, I didn't want to play tennis, I didn't really know if I wanted to do it anymore. You definitely hit those types of low moments," she said.
"I have definitely had several of those, but I think in the end I always would kind of snap back and be, like, 'OK, what am I talking about?' I would always kind of flip the script a little bit, and I have always been good at doing that. I think that's why I've always been able to come back from different challenges even better than before.
"Honestly, I've always felt like, not that it was never going to happen, I almost think the opposite. I always felt like, you know what, 'You'll figure it out eventually.' That's always something I've always told myself, I'll figure it out one of these times.
"I think that's just kind of maybe my quiet kind of confidence to myself that I feel like I always have."
Pegula will take a 2-5 record against Sabalenka into the final, but takes comfort in knowing that she has "a game that can possibly frustrate" one of the best hard-court players in the world. Three weeks ago in the final of the Cincinnati Open, Sabalenka won 6-3, 7-5, but it was a match that Pegula said she had her chances in.
As she showed on Thursday night, all it takes is one.
"I'm just happy to be in a final, but obviously I come here to want to win the title," Pegula continued. "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.
"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."
