U.S. Open: Jessica Pegula to face Aryna Sabalenka in women’s final

By HOWARD FENDRICH AP Tennis Writer

NEW YORK — Jessica Pegula could do no right at the outset of her first Grand Slam semifinal. Her opponent at the U.S. Open on Thursday night, Karolina Muchova, could do no wrong.

“I came out flat, but she was playing unbelievable. She made me look like a beginner,” Pegula said. “I was about to burst into tears, because it was embarrassing. She was destroying me.”

Pegula managed to shrug off that sluggish start and come back from a set and a break down to defeat Muchova, 1-6, 6-4, 6-2, for a berth in the final at Flushing Meadows. The sixth-seeded Pegula, a 30-year-old from New York, has won 15 of her past 16 matches and will meet No. 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka for the title on Saturday.

Sabalenka, last year’s runner-up to Coco Gauff at the U.S. Open, returned to the championship match by holding off a late push to beat No. 13 Emma Navarro of the United States, 6-3, 7-6 (2).

It will be a rematch of last month’s final at the hard-court Cincinnati Open, which Sabalenka won – the only blemish on Pegula’s post-Olympics record.

“Hopefully I can get some revenge out here,” said Pegula, whose parents own the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and NHL’s Buffalo Sabres. “Playing Aryna is going to be really tough. I mean, she showed how tough she is and why she’s probably the favorite to win this tournament.”

Things did not look promising for Pegula early Thursday. Not at all.

Muchova, the 2023 French Open runner-up but unseeded after missing about 10 months because of wrist surgery, employed every ounce of her versatility and creativity, the traits that make her so hard to deal with on any surface. The slices. The touch at the net. The serve-and-volleying. Ten of the match’s first 12 winners came off her racket. The first set lasted 28 minutes, and Muchova won 30 of its 44 points.

After grabbing eight of the first nine games, Muchova was a single point from leading 3-0 in the second set. But she couldn’t convert a break chance there, flubbing a forehand volley off a slice from Pegula, and everything changed.

“I was thinking, ‘All right. That was kind of lucky. You’re still in this,’” Pegula said. “It comes down to really small moments that flip momentum.”

Quickly, the 52nd-ranked Muchova went from not being able to miss a shot to not being able to make one. And Pegula turned it on, heeding her two coaches’ advice to mix up her serves and her spins, to go after Muchova’s backhand more. Most of all, Pegula demonstrated the confident brand of tennis she used to eliminate top-ranked Iga Swiatek, a five-time major champion, in straight sets on Wednesday. Pegula had been 0-6 in major quarterfinals before that breakthrough.

It took Pegula a while to play that well Thursday, but once she got going, whoa, did she ever. All told, she collected nine of 11 games, a span that allowed her to not merely flip the second set but race to a 3-0 edge in the third.

“I was able to find a way, find some adrenaline, find my legs. And then at the end of the second set, into the third set, I started to play like how I wanted to play. It took a while,” Pegula said. “I don’t know how I turned that around.”

Muchova, a 28-year-old from the Czech Republic, hadn’t ceded a set in the tournament until then. But she began to fade. After going 7 for 7 on points at the net in the first set, she went 15 for 29 the rest of the way. After only seven unforced errors in the first set, she had 33 across the second and third.

And all the while, the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd that was flat at the beginning – save for the occasional cry of “Come on, Jess!” – was roaring.

When things suddenly got quite tight in the second set of the first semifinal, and spectators suddenly got quite loud while pulling for Navarro, Sabalenka found herself flashing back to 2023, when a rowdy Ashe crowd backed Gauff vociferously.

“Last year, it was a very tough experience. Very tough lesson. Today in the match, I was, like, ‘No, no, no, Aryna. It’s not going to happen again. You have to control your emotions. You have to focus on yourself,’” said Sabalenka, a 26-year-old from Belarus who was the champion at the last two Australian Opens.

Using her usual brand of high-risk, high-reward tennis, Sabalenka produced 34 winners and 34 unforced errors – punctuating most of her groundstrokes with a yell – and, in a fitting bit of symmetry, Navarro had 13 winners and 13 unforced errors.

Navarro did not fold in the second set, despite trailing for much of it, and as the noise around her grew, she broke when Sabalenka attempted to serve for the victory at 5-4.

“I wasn’t ready for the match to be over,” Navarro said.

But in the tiebreaker that followed, Sabalenka took over after Navarro led 2-0, grabbing every point that remained.

“I kind of got my teeth into it there at the end of the second set,” said Navarro, who got past Gauff in the fourth round, “and I felt I could definitely push it to a third. Wasn’t able to do so.”

Navarro, who defeated Gauff in the fourth round, is a 23-year-old who was born in New York, grew up in South Carolina and won an NCAA singles title for the University of Virginia in 2021. This was her debut in a Slam semifinal and, while she displayed the skills and steadiness that carried her there, Navarro was not able to keep up with Sabalenka, who was in that round at a major for the ninth time.

If Sabalenka is as demonstrative as can be, often holding a fist aloft and screaming after a big point or rolling her eyes after a miss, Navarro is far more subdued, rarely, if ever, betraying a hint of emotion, whether positive or negative.

Even when she broke to 5-all, there wasn’t a way to tell what happened by looking at Navarro. The sounds from the seats were an indication. But soon, thousands of ticket-holders were saluting Sabalenka for her latest show of mastery on a hard court; she’s now into her fourth straight final at a major held on that surface.

“Well, guys, now you are cheering for me,” Sabalenka with a laugh. “Well, it’s a bit too late.”

RETIRING YOUNG LOSES IN MIXED DOUBLES FINAL

Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori won the U.S. Open mixed doubles title with a 7-6 (0), 7-5 victory over Taylor Townsend and Donald Young, who fell just short of a Grand Slam title in his final match before retiring.

Errani, who won a career Grand Slam in women’s doubles with fellow Italian Roberta Vinci, added her first career mixed doubles title to the Olympic gold medal in women’s doubles she won last month with Jasmine Paolini.

“It’s incredible for me this year. It’s amazing,” Errani said.

Townsend and Young, who have been friends since they were kids, were given a wild card into the event for what was the 35-year-old Young’s final tournament. The former top-ranked junior hadn’t played much in recent years, having made the switch to pickleball.

“Obviously wasn’t the result we wanted,” Young said, “but I can’t think of a better spot, place to go out in, having watched that as a kid, and playing with someone I’ve known our whole life. It’s pretty cool for me.”

He and Townsend made their way through the draw, knocking off defending champions Anna Danilina and Harri Heliovarra in the quarterfinals.

But Errani and Vavassori, the No. 3 seeds, dominated the tiebreaker and then won the match by breaking Townsend’s serve.

Errani hadn’t played a mixed doubles event for eight years before partnering with Vavassori at Wimbledon. They were knocked out in the first round, then reached the quarterfinals at the Olympics before coming to New York.

Young’s parents coached Townsend, who lost in the women’s doubles semifinals with Katerina Siniakova after they won the Wimbledon title.

The 28-year-old Townsend said after the match that she hoped fans seeing two Black players in the finals, after Coco Gauff won the women’s title in Flushing Meadows last year and Frances Tiafoe is in the men’s semifinals on Friday, would inspire more of them to play.

Young was then presented with a framed collage of photos of himself playing at the U.S. Open.

“For me, Donald and I, we go so far back. I mean, in life in general,” Townsend said. “It’s not the end. We both live in Atlanta, so I’m going to see him a ton and follow what he’s doing in the next chapter. But it’s cool to be able to close the book this way. Again, being able to leave here with some hardware when a lot of people didn’t, that’s the most special thing.

“So, I mean, it’s fantastic. I’m glad to be able to do it by his side.”

AP sports writer Brian Mahoney contributed to this story.