NEW YORK — Back in January, when Aryna Sabalenka was winning a second consecutive Australian Open title, Jessica Pegula was bowing out in the second round with a straight-set loss to the 51st-ranked player.
It wasn’t the first setback for Pegula, of course. There have been many of those through the years, from assorted injuries to difficult-to-digest defeats.
Look at her now, though: On Saturday, the sixth-seeded Pegula will face No. 2 Sabalenka for the U.S. Open championship.
“If you would have told me at the beginning of the year I’d be in the finals of the U.S. Open, I would have laughed so hard because that just was where my head was — not thinking that I would be here,” Pegula, a 30-year-old American, said Thursday night after coming back to earn her first shot at a Grand Slam trophy with a 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory over Karolina Muchova in the semifinals at Flushing Meadows.
“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.”
It hasn’t always been a smooth ride for Pegula, the oldest U.S. woman to reach her first major singles final in the Open era, which began in 1968.
There was a 2013 knee problem that required surgery. And a hip operation that sidelined Pegula for more than half of 2017, leaving her ranked outside the top 850 and forcing her to work her way back up via lower-tour events. This season, a rib injury kept her out for two months, sidelining her for the French Open.
On the court, there was a seven-match Grand Slam losing streak that ended in New York in 2020. And an 0-6 record in major quarterfinals until this week, when she outplayed No. 1 Iga Swiatek, a five-time Slam champion.
Surely, at some point along the journey, Pegula lost hope of ever fulfilling her childhood goal of winning one of her sport’s four most prestigious tournaments, right?
No, not really.
Yes, she acknowledged, there were “those type of low moments,” as she put it, with some doubt whether she “wanted to do it anymore.”
“But in the end, I always would kind of snap back and be like, ‘OK, what am I talking about?’” said Pegula, who was born in New York and whose parents own the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and NHL’s Buffalo Sabres. “I would always kind of flip the script a little bit, and I have always been good at doing that. 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.’”
“Eventually” seems to be right now.
Since moving to hard courts after the Paris Olympics on clay, Pegula has gone 15-1 with a title in Toronto and a runner-up finish in the Cincinnati Open before the success over the past two weeks.
The lone loss in that stretch came against — yes, you guessed it — Sabalenka, the dominant player on the surface over the last two seasons. Saturday’s match will be Sabalenka’s fourth final in a row at a hard-court major, including the last two Australian Opens and a loss to Coco Gauff for the title at Flushing Meadows a year ago.
The American crowd did its best to boost Gauff that day, rattling Sabalenka, a 26-year-old from Belarus who is 45-11 in 2024.
“Tough losses never — how to say? — make me feel depressed, like, not thinking of not coming back to the tournament,” Sabalenka said after eliminating American Emma Navarro in straight sets in the semifinals. “It only motivates me to come back and to try one more time, try harder and, maybe, work harder on some things which maybe didn’t work in the past.
“I’m still hoping to hold that beautiful trophy.”