FLUSHING, NEW YORK — No one expected any surprises in the US Open women’s quarterfinals on Wednesday night. No. 6 seed Jessica Pegula’s clean, flat hitting is damaging enough for most opponents on the tour, but it historically doesn’t work against top-ranked Iga Swiatek and her terrifying wall of topspin. While Pegula managed to claw her way into a one-sided contest last season, winning the two meetings, Swiatek ended the year with a 6-0, 6-1 win over Pegula that lasted 59 minutes and gave her a win at the WTA Finals. They haven’t played each other since then. Nothing in the way Swiatek has played on hard courts this season suggested she would lose 6-2, 6-4
Aside from a little struggle in the first round, this US Open was a businesslike affair for Swiatek: skillfully outplaying much-improved opponents and lower-seeded players. She handled her service games with ease, winning a good chunk of first serves, supporting them from the baseline, and facing zero break points in her last three matches. But Swiatek’s service struggles took her out of contention in the first set. She put only a third of her first serves into play, and double-faulted twice. Pegula broke serve twice and took a 4-0 lead that proved unassailable. Then the world No. 1 took the mandatory, momentum-killing “bathroom” break. While plenty of players have used this strategy, it’s perhaps a little more obvious than Swiatek, who has a variety of tactics to slow down the pace of play. (Her usual method is to hold the racket to delay the server, which Danielle Collins has adopted Memorable objection (At the Paris Olympics.) Sometimes controlling the pace of a match is one way Swiatek follows in the footsteps of her idol, Rafael Nadal.
A few minutes later, Swiatek arrived on court in a new white outfit; while there were Some horribly sweaty days At this tournament, Wednesday night’s session was comfortably below 70 degrees. There are several moments in my notes when it seemed like Swiatek had made the necessary course-correction adjustments, and was about to come back. In fact, that never happened. Swiatek hit big shots and threw the ball long and wide, especially on the forehand side.
Pegula, meanwhile, committed to a simple gameplan suited to her skills: keep a flat pace through the middle of the court, defend clean on the run to keep the pressure on, and force Swiatek to try to find her feel on groundstrokes again. The top seed never rose to the challenge, nor did she ever come up with a new plan of attack. After a ultimately fatal break of Pegula’s serve at 3-3 in the second set, Swiatek pounded the net with her racket in an unusual outward display of frustration, and was seen crying in the locker room afterward. In the press, she praised Pegula for her “tricky ball because it’s low enough and flat enough,” and said she couldn’t get into the match because her serve was struggling. Though Swiatek initially rose to the top of the game by molding her game into a monotonous, dominant style, she may benefit from restoring some other levels that can serve as alternatives when her preferred style goes awry.
The quarterfinal loss continues a worrying trend for Swiatek. Even though she has dominated at Roland-Garros, winning four of the last five titles, she has struggled elsewhere. Swiatek has not reached the semifinal stage of any other major in the past two seasons, despite her years as the world No. 1 player. Although Swiatek continues to crush the smaller tour events, her rival Aryna Sabalenka has developed more consistency in the majors and could now be tipped for a semifinal spot whenever she is in the draw. It is worth asking whether Swiatek is managing to keep her energy from peaking at the most important moments of the year. frequently spoken This year he spoke about how grueling he finds the new Tour schedule, which includes 10 mandatory 1000-level tournaments, but told the press on Wednesday night that he plans to continue competing until November.
Swiatek’s exit is also a career pinnacle for Pegula, contributing to the American success at this US Open, which has four semifinalists in the men’s and women’s singles. This was Pegula’s first major semifinal berth after an 0-6 tally in her previous quarterfinals. In 2022, after being defeated by Swiatek in the US Open quarters, Pegula went into her press conference and famously said opened a beerPartly to urinate for a doping test and partly to “cut the damage.” She was the only current top-10 player on the WTA who had not yet appeared in a major semifinal, and she erased that dubious distinction with a one-sided victory over her most frequent foe. It tests the known limits of whether a player is willing to submit to a doping test. Fracking successor It can also be inspirational.