Jessica Pegula's improbable US Open turnaround leads to her first Grand Slam singles final

NEW YORK—If you’re ever in the US Open semifinals, and you find yourself one point from being down a set and two breaks, now you know what to do.

You take a big slap at a Hail Mary crosscourt forehand pass from outside the sideline, and pray that your opponent misses the volley. That’s what Jessica Pegula taught us in her utterly unlikely comeback win over Karolina Muchova on Thursday night in Arthur Ashe Stadium. After that shot, and Muchova’s miss, the match turned on its head.

Up until that moment, for the first nine games of the match, Muchova had been lights out. She couldn’t have hit the ball more cleanly, or played with more clarity, or read Pegula any better. Time after time, the American hit a penetrating shot, only to be caught out of position as Muchova zipped it back, an inch from the sideline. The Czech showed off everything she had, from touch volleys to half-volley drops to power serves down the T to full-cut ground-stroke winners. By the start of the second set, Pegula’s head was hanging and it seemed she had stopped searching for answers. Muchova led 6-1, 2-0, with break points for 3-0.

“She was playing unbelievably. I mean, she made me look like a beginner,” Pegula told Rennae Stubbs on court afterward. “I was about to burst into tears because it was so embarrassing.”

“She was destroying me.”

But Pegula prolonged that 0-2 game just long enough that Muchova finally cooled off. At deuce, she missed a smash that she would have slammed home earlier in the match.

“I was able to hold that game, and I found my legs, and I found some adrenaline,” Pegula said. “In the second set and into the third I started to play the way I wanted to play.”

That way was to find her rhythm and her range and essentially stop missing. Pegula erased her unforced errors without taking any pace off the ball. As she began to hit with more force and consistency, Muchova fell out of the zone and began to spray the ball. Serving at 4-5, 0-40, Muchova saved two set points before double faulting on the third.

In the deciding set, Pegula continued to hammer everything with machine-like accuracy, but this time Muchova recovered and raised her own level back up. With Pegula serving at 3-1 and 4-2, Muchova played brilliant tennis, coming up with a pair of crosscourt passes that left Pegula smiling in disbelief. But each time Pegula served her way out of trouble. By the end, Muchova had taken her best shot, and Pegula hadn’t blinked. Her 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 win put her into her first Grand Slam final at 30 years old.

“That was kind of lucky,” Pegula said of the desperation swipe that kept her alive in the second set. “It comes down to really small moments that flip momentum.”