Jessica Pegula is a momentum player, or so she thought.
This time last year, she was having the summer of her life. Forget the first half of the season. The Paris Games, too, for that matter. You can throw that out the window. But she would eventually find her form beginning with a successful WTA 1000 title defense in Toronto, followed by a run to the final at the Cincinnati Open, followed by a trip to her career-first Grand Slam title match at the 2024 US Open.
In all, the American won 15 of 17 matches across the three events, as in-form as she had ever been in her decade-and-a-half pro career.
“I think I always play well when I have a lot of matches under my belt,” she said earlier this year in Charleston. “I like getting in that phase where you feel really match-tough. I usually seem to handle it well.”
It’s been a different story altogether in 2025. Though she would claim titles in Austin, Charleston and Bad Homburg on three different surfaces—cement, green clay and grass—she arrived in Flushing Meadows admittedly out of sorts.
She had suffered third-round losses in both Montreal and Cincinnati, and was busy looking for answers. She would question her on-court tactics, even her string tension. During one cold and windy practice session in the lead-up to the US Open, she says she simply walked off the court midway through, saying, “I’m done. This isn’t good. I don’t know why I’m out here practicing. I’m done for today.”
“I kind of walked off the court not very happy,” she explained.
A visit to an escape room with friends, and a drink or two, seemed to do the trick.
“Compared to last year, it’s been like a complete 180,” she says.
However, the summer stall doesn’t seem to have affected her potency on Arthur Ashe Stadium's baselines. After a straightforward 6-3, 6-3 dismissal of two-time major singles champ Barbora Krejcikova on Day 10 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the fourth seed finds herself back in the semifinals for the second year in a row.
“I guess I don’t need as many matches as I thought,” said Pegula, 30, with a laugh. “I think having matches and having that confidence always helps, but at the same time, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to translate into going deep into a Slam.”
Pegula credits a favorable draw that saw her dodge any seeds through five rounds, her highest ranked opponents being No. 58 Ann Li, though Krejcikova and third-round victim Victoria Azarenka are both multi-Slam titlists.
“I haven’t really had to play anyone like matchup-wise that has really bothered me a ton, so I think that’s helped,” she said. “But at the same time, I’ve been able to kind of go into those matches and really take care of business. I think that’s also what’s given me a lot of confidence.”
Despite a summer without momentum, Pegula has been able to turn it on and find her best tennis at her biggest event of the year.
“I guess I surprised myself,” she said. “I always come back to the fact that I’m pretty confident with who I am, and I think I’ll always back myself and figure things out in the end instead of spiraling and letting it go too far. I definitely do that a little bit, but I think I always catch myself just in time.
"That’s kind of what I've been able to do for the last four or five years, being a top player. I feel like I can always come back to the fact that I can figure it out in the end, and that always kind of hits me in the toughest moments of the year. It doesn’t mean it’s easy, but I think now, especially as I’ve gotten older, I can just tap into a lot of the experience that I have.”
