Jessica Pegula booked her place within the US Open quarterfinals with a efficiency Billie Jean King would have been pleased with because the American tennis icon watched her cruise previous Russia’s Diana Shnaider in straight units on Monday.
Pegula, the quantity six seed at this 12 months’s match, swept 18th-seeded Shnadier 6-4, 6-2 to advance to the final eight in snug style.
The 30-year-old American is but to make it previous the quarterfinal stage of a Grand Slam, which means she is only one victory away from a career-best run on the massive stage.
And as she brushed apart Shnadier on Monday, Pegula did so in entrance of the legendary King, who was in attendance on the USTA Nationwide Tennis Middle that’s named after her.
The 80-year-old, who’s extensively thought-about one of many biggest tennis gamers of all time, gained a staggering 39 Grand Slams all through her well-known profession; with 12 coming in singles, 16 in doubles and 11 in blended doubles.
Jessica Pegula booked her place within the US Open quarterfinals on Monday afternoon
Pegula is having fun with fairly a run after successful 13 of her previous 14 matches, all on laborious courts. That included her second consecutive title in Canada and an look within the closing on the Cincinnati Open, the place she misplaced to No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka.
‘I really feel like there’s been extra stress this 12 months, as a result of I did so properly coming into this match,’ stated the Buffalo-born star, whose mother and father personal the NFL’s Payments and the NHL’s Sabres.
‘I need to maintain working my manner and hopefully bringing my greatest tennis for the later rounds this time.’
Pegula made it to the quarterfinals at Flushing Meadows two years in the past, earlier than dropping to No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who went on to win one in every of her 5 main championships.
There might be one other assembly with Swiatek looming as she is scheduled to face the winner of Monday night time’s match between her and No. 16 Liudmila Samsonova subsequent.
Three of Pegula’s six quarterfinal exits at Slams got here towards a No. 1 participant — Swiatek twice and Ash Barty as soon as.
Billie Jean King watched on as Pegula claimed a straight-sets victory within the spherical of 16
Requested throughout her on-court interview in Arthur Ashe Stadium what she must do to get to the semifinals this time, Pegula joked: ‘I at all times say I simply have to win the match to get to the semis, after which that’ll remedy all the pieces, proper?’
She continued: ‘Pay attention, it doesn’t actually matter to me. I imply, each match is each match. I’ve at all times performed it like that. It simply so occurs to be (the) quarterfinals, however on the identical time, to have the ability to say I’ve been in that place many, many instances is nice. So I simply must maintain placing myself there and maintain attempting to play my sport.’
That sport labored fairly properly towards Shnaider, a 20-year-old Russian who performed one season of faculty tennis at NC State and gained a silver medal in ladies’s doubles on the Paris Olympics.
Pegula compiled 22 winners, hit six aces, saved seven of 9 break factors that she confronted and claimed 5 of Shnaider’s service video games.
‘I really feel like I’m shifting so significantly better across the court docket,’ Pegula stated, including that this was the ‘greatest, off the bottom, that I’ve felt.’
