Jessica Pegula's willingness to take chances paid off at the US Open

NEW YORK—Jessica Pegula is 30 years old and a late bloomer by the exacting standards of top-flight tennis. Her progress has been orderly and incremental, until a great leap this past fortnight left her playing for the US Open title on a rainy Saturday under the roof of Arthur Ashe Stadium, her first appearance in a Grand Slam final.

In the biggest match of her career, Pegula faced the woman with the biggest game in women’s tennis, Aryna Sabalenka. She lost, in an eye-opening match full of momentum shifts in two tight sets, 7-5, 7-5. It turns out that recording upsets over the WTA’s Top 2 (Pegula eliminated No. 1 Iga Swiatek in quarterfinals) in the same tournament were beyond her grasp—but not by all that much.

“If I can’t take confidence from this, there’s got to be something wrong,” Pegula said in her post-match press conference. “I’ve taken confidence from winning a 250 (level tournament), from winning a (Masters) 1000. . . Multiple ones now. Then to be able to be a Grand Slam finalist, I think that was kind of the last thing for me.”

The breakthrough is especially satisfying for Pegula, who had stalled at the quarterfinal stage in Grand Slam events six times before this week. She asked herself, “Can I make a semi? Can I be a contender to actually win a Grand Slam?”

Her words can easily be taken as expressions of low confidence and self-doubt. But they are those of a realist who has taken nothing for granted—nor lost faith in her abilities. In addition to her obvious athletic gifts, she is by nature a problem solver, patient in the way of all strivers who have hidden reserves of self-belief.

“Honestly, I’ve [never felt that] it was never going to happen, I almost think the opposite,” she said of finding success at a high level on the tour. “I always felt like, ‘You know what? You’ll figure it out eventually. That’s something I’ve always told myself,’ I’ll figure it out one of these times.’ That’s just maybe my quiet kind of confidence that I feel like I always had.”

Mastering emotions and cultivating mental armor are essential to success, but the physical and technical aspects of a sport as demanding as tennis also demand attention—especially for a player like Pegula. She isn’t the most explosive athlete, like a Swiatek, nor a physical specimen, like Sabalenka. Her serve has traditionally been vulnerable. She’s a welterweight, fighting up a few classes.

Pegula was obliged to sit out a number of tournaments, including Roland Garros, earlier this year due to back and neck injuries. It proved to be a blessing in disguise. She was “burnt out” after the Australian swing, and at that point and decided to part with her long-time coach David Witt. She replaced him with the duo of former ATP doubles standouts Mark Knowles and Mark Merklein.

Since making the change, Pegula has made noteworthy progress in all the areas where rivals have been able to attack her. Her serve is better, as evidenced by the four aces (Sabalenka had just two more) and the undocumented but significant number of unreturned serves she hit in the final. In fact, her first-serve winning percentage was the same as Sabalenka’s, 65 percent.

“To be honest, I think I’ve been serving pretty good the last few months,” she said after she beat Swiatek. “It’s starting to, like, teeter upwards more consistently.”

You can’t listen to knowledgeable commentators these days without frequent references to a player’s ability to “get in and out of corners,” which is basically the ability to recover from dangerous positions and reclaim territory—and physical control. Pegula said that in comparison with the beginning of the year, when she felt slow and sluggish at the Australian Open, her movement has significantly improved.

“I can get pulled off the court, but still not get behind in the point,” she said. “I can get out of the corners and still be aggressive with my shots. Also mix it up, throw in a couple of slices on both sides. And I can keep going for my shots, keeping that pressure on my opponents is really important.”

Pegula did all that and more in the final. She looked comfortable blasting away right along with Sabalenka in long rallies. She would not be forced back and out of position by Sabalenka’s most penetrating shots (her friend and Team USA benchmate Emma Navarro calls it “pushing back” against an aggressive opponent). When both women were planted on the baseline and reluctant to risk going for angles, Pegula often looked like the better player in straight-up forehand and backhand rallies.

Sabalenka’s experience in marquee matches was a significant if subterranean factor in the final, with Pegula playing slightly nervous, passive tennis in the last two games of each set—both breaks for Sabalenka. Pegula will certainly draw conclusions from that.

Before she played Swiatek, Pegula spoke about the impact of her recent win at the Toronto WTA 1000 (where she defended the title she won in Montreal last year), and her run to the Cincinnati final (where she lost to Sabalenka).

“Once you realize that you can win in tough moments, and you can beat these girls, it just gives you a lot of confidence going into these (Grand Slam) weeks,” she said. “I’ve been able to build off of that. You can always improve, you can always get better.”

“I’m very open to trying different things, to changing things, and not anything crazy, but to just opening up to different perspectives and not being afraid to try new things, whether it’s a movement thing, it’s a shot. I’m also not afraid to try that in matches, as well.”

Pegula’s willingness to take chances and depart from the comfort zone of a steady baseliner were on full display in the final. She was pushing back, and is likely to do a lot more of that going forward.