By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Saturday September 6, 2024
New York – After years of toiling in relative obscurity, a late bloomer Jessica Pegula moved up the ranks to join the elite, starting in 2021. The Buffalo, NY native reached six major quarterfinals from 2021 to 2023, but she lost them all — and she still wasn’t satisfied.
It would have been easy for Pegula to admit that she wasn’t good enough. Or go with what made her a Top 10 player. But she did the opposite. Pegula bet on himself in 2024, parting ways with longtime coach David Witt in hopes he could find a new way. The missing ingredient, she thought, might be there, and how would she know what it was unless she tried?
“I just felt I had to take a risk,” she told reporters at Indian Wells in March. “I’m 30 – not that being 30 is the end – and I guess I just didn’t want to look back and be like ‘maybe I should have tried someone else, or tried something different’.”
At first, Pegula’s new beginning was not pretty. She had trouble winning matches with her new training group (Mark Knowles and Mark Merklein) and lost in the second round in both tournaments she played. There were also injuries.
By spring it was hard to see the American as an elite threat. Perhaps her best days were behind her?
But Pegula still believed.
She took this summer off, skipping the Olympics to recharge, and she’s been a real force since the start of the North American hard court season. After winning her sixth career title in Toronto, she reached the final in Cincinnati and headed to New York with a full head of steam.
Here in New York she has fulfilled her lifelong dream – reaching a Grand Slam final on home soil.
Pegula is the oldest American woman in the Open Era to make a first Grand Slam final and the third American woman aged 30 or older to make a US Open final, joining Serena Williams and Martina Navratilova .
She beat Karolina Muchova in the semi-finals after knocking out World No.1 Iga Swiatek in the quarter-finals to end her run of futility in Grand Slam quarter-finals.
“It’s amazing,” she said after knocking off Muchova by winning 12 of the last 16 games (after dropping the opening set). It’s a childhood dream. This is what I wanted when I was a kid. It’s a lot of work, a lot of hard work.
“It would definitely mean the world to me (to win the title). I’m happy to be in the final, but obviously I want to win the title.”
Pegula showed courage, choosing to challenge herself rather than accept the status quo. Now, she is a Grand Slam finalist. Even if it was part of her grand plan, she admits it’s still a little surprising.
“If you had told me at the beginning of the year that I would be in the finals of the US Open, I would have laughed a lot because that’s where my head was, I wasn’t thinking that I would be here. “she said. “So to be able to overcome all those challenges and say I have a shot at the title on Saturday is what we play for as players, let alone be able to do that in my country here at my home slam. It’s perfect, really.”
Pegula will continue her magical run against Aryna Sabalenka in the final on Saturday. Whether she wins or not, her success at the 2024 US Open has been inspiring. And a lesson to all to never settle for anything less than your best.
