Jessica Pegula has accomplished just about everything at her home Grand Slam, except walk away with the trophy.<\/p>\n
The Buffalo native, seeded a career-best No. 3,\u00a0 continued her decade-long U.S. Open title quest Wednesday with a dominating win over fellow American Sofia Kenin, 6-3, 6-1, to kick off the day\u2019s action at Arthur Ashe Stadium.<\/p>\n
But the early rounds have never been Pegula\u2019s problem here in Flushing Meadows, and Wednesday was no different. The only real question was whether the 32-year-old would get off the court in less than an hour in this All-American second-round match.<\/p>\n
Mission accomplished as she produced what she described in her on-court interview as a \u201cpretty efficient\u201d performance in beating the former Australian Open champion in just 56 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was happy with the way I played throughout the whole match,\u201d Pegula said. \u201cOut of there in under an hour, doesn\u2019t always happen, so just take that one and run until the next round.<\/p>\n
\u201cAltogether, another solid match.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a cloud-filled day with the roof open despite early-morning sprinkles in Queens, Pegula \u2014 who was introduced to the still-arriving crowd as the \u201ctop American on tour\u201d \u2014 pretty much ended any thought that this would be a real test by breaking Kenin in the opening game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t tend to draw off the crowd too much, as in like too much positive energy or too much negative energy, so for me I\u2019m just focused on myself and giving myself energy,\u201d Pegula said of the sparse late-morning crowd. \u201cI\u2019m one of those players, even though I do draw off the crowd, at the same time I don\u2019t want to get too high because then I feel I crash a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it is tricky when it\u2019s not super full and you hear a lot of random noises, and especially on Ashe you kind of hear everything. So even when there is dead noise, there is still a buzz or a chatter, or people talking or eating, laughing and all these different emotions.\u201d<\/p>\n
A buzz that more resembled Grand Central during morning rush hour than the world\u2019s biggest, brashest tennis stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just really have to do a good job of locking yourself in a bubble when you are out there. But I love being first on, so to me it doesn\u2019t really matter what the crowd is doing. I\u2019m just there to do my job and get in and out as best I can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kenin, 27, who bounced Venus Williams in first-round action late on Day 1, was once ranked as high as No. 4 in the world and had a magical 2020 campaign that included winning the Australian Open and then a runner-up finish at the French Open. But those lofty days are well in the rear-view mirror and Kenin, ranked No. 110, needed a wild card entry to get into the main draw here.<\/p>\n
Just two minutes into a match that saw the first ball struck at 11:44 a.m., it was clear this would not be a competitive one. Kenin was down 0-40 after just three points and then double-faulted on break point to fall into an early hole. Pegula quickly consolidated the break and was off and running. She broke again to finish off the opening set in just 30 minutes, 6-3.<\/p>\n
Pegula, who reached the final here in 2024 before losing to Aryna Sabalenka, didn\u2019t drop a set last year until losing to Sabalenka (notice the pattern?) in a three-set semifinal, then ran off five straight games to start the second set before finishing off the match, 6-1.<\/p>\n
Pegula won 86% of her first-serve points, and 78% on her second serve. She didn\u2019t face a break point against, while converting 4 of her 8 chances to grab a game off Kenin\u2019s shaky serve. She finished with 18 winners.<\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s romp follows Sunday\u2019s opening-round win over Romania\u2019s Elena-Gabriela Ruse, 6-3, 6-2, in a match that lasted just 83 minutes.<\/p>\n
Next up for Pegula will be Canadian lefty Leylah Fernandez, ranked No. 33, in a third-round match scheduled for Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s tough to play,\u201d Pegula said when asked to look ahead to her next opponent. \u201cShe plays a little bit unorthodox, likes to use her forehand and take the ball super early and so when she is feeling it, it can be really tough to play against.\u201d<\/p>\n
But to claim the ultimate prize \u2014 a U.S. Open championship and first career Grand Slam title \u2014 Pegula will need to figure out how to finally get the best of Sabalenka (who headlines Wednesday\u2019s night session), the world\u2019s best player. The two are lined up to face each other in the semifinals.<\/p>\n
Maybe this is the year that the home-court advantage will carry the New Yorker to the top.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jessica Pegula has accomplished just about everything at her home Grand Slam, except walk away with the trophy.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[312,366,183,2265,1915,1037,463],"class_list":["post-63438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us-open","tag-arthur-ashe-stadium","tag-grand-slam","tag-jessica-pegula","tag-sabalenka","tag-sofia-kenin","tag-u-s-open","tag-us-open"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}