NEW YORK \u2014 Jessica Pegula came from behind in a topsy-turvy match full of breaks of serve Tuesday night, beating fellow American Emma Navarro 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 to advance to her third consecutive U.S. Open semifinal.<\/p>\n
Her prize? A third chance at taking down Aryna Sabalenka in New York.<\/p>\n
Pegula, the No. 3 seed, will meet the defending champion for the third consecutive year at the U.S. Open. She lost to her in the semifinals last year and in the final the year before, in what is Pegula\u2019s only career Grand Slam final appearance.<\/p>\n
She has won two of her past three meetings against Sabalenka, but a victory at her home major against the world No. 1 \u2014 whose top spot in the rankings she could still take with a win here \u2014 has so far eluded her.<\/p>\n
While some athletes try their best to view each match in a rivalry as detached from the others, played under completely new circumstances, Pegula finds it motivating to think of her and Sabalenka\u2019s matches in totality. Even if the current tally sits at 9-4 in Sabalenka\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n
Few top women\u2019s players have faced off as frequently as they have in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s fun to look at the rivalry we\u2019ve had. She\u2019s gotten me here the last couple of years. I have been able to beat her a few times, maybe on a smaller stage, so I think that\u2019s going to be kind of a hurdle for me to get over,\u201d Pegula said in a news conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut at the same time, I think it\u2019s fun. We\u2019ve challenged each other. I know that she\u2019s definitely pushed me to become a better player, so I always respect and appreciate that aspect of our rivalry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pegula delayed her commute to the U.S. Open grounds Tuesday by a few minutes to watch Sabalenka win the deciding set tiebreak against Linda Noskov\u00e1 in the first quarterfinal of the day.<\/p>\n
She isn\u2019t surprised to be meeting Sabalenka in the semifinals despite the world No. 1\u2019s rocky spring and summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a pretty terrible summer last year and then was able to play really good tennis here and take a set off of her in the semis last time we played. So sometimes results don\u2019t really matter that much,\u201d Pegula said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like when you\u2019re a top player, the reason you\u2019re there is because you can draw on experience and you can find your game in really tough moments.\u201d
Pegula will try to draw on her recent wins against Sabalenka in preparation for their upcoming match, and pull her level back up after an off day against Navarro.<\/p>\n
The final game Tuesday, in which Pegula missed her first match point and then cracked a winner to deny Navarro the chance to break back, was typical of the evening. There were nine breaks of serve in 28 games, with games that regularly swung back and forth from deuce.<\/p>\n
Early in her match with Navarro, the No. 26 seed, Pegula tinkered with her choice of racket. This was her first formal night session, and she struggled to find her range from the baseline and on her serve. But as the match wore on, she found the reliable rhythm that has carried her to deep runs in Flushing Meadows the past few years.<\/p>\n
Her serve, which has improved in pace and precision this year, is still not quite firing. Navarro took advantage of that even as Pegula\u2019s baseline consistency grew, pressuring her serve even into what proved to be the middle of the third set.<\/p>\n
Navarro broke Pegula\u2019s serve to lead 2-1, on her third break point in the game. Pegula broke back to love for 2-2, but Navarro immediately brought up two more break points.<\/p>\n
This time, Pegula held firm on her serve, despite needing a second delivery on both points. In the very next game, Pegula broke Navarro\u2019s serve once more, and she was away.<\/p>\n
Pegula may be the one of the most reliable winners in women\u2019s tennis, with a tour-leading 50 wins this year and five appearances in tournament finals, but Sabalenka will be her biggest test.<\/p>\n
Despite those two recent wins for Pegula, the Belarusian owns a 9-4 record against the American and she\u2019s owned their only two Grand Slam meetings, both of which have come at the U.S. Open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 Jessica Pegula came from behind in a topsy-turvy match full of breaks of serve Tuesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":841882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428,28230],"class_list":["post-841881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-top-sports-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/841882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}