Building toward this moment, Pegula tops Azarenka in Australian opener

Once upon a time there was an urban legend known as the Sports Illustrated cover jinx. Did athletes who appeared on it subsequently perform worse?

Magazine covers? Per John McEnroe, you cannot be serious. Sports Illustrated, step aside and make room for something far more debilitating than any form of publicity: the Australian Open hard quarantine. Yesterday saw 2016 champion Angelique Kerber ushered out in the first round, a defeat at least to some degree influenced by her having spent 24 hours a day inside a hotel room for two weeks.

Today, a similarly quarantined player, 12th-seeded Victoria Azarenka—champion in Melbourne in 2012 and 2013—lost her opener, taken out by 61st-ranked Jessica Pegula, 7-5, 6-4.

Credit Pegula, first and foremost, for a sharp effort.

“I think my fitness and my movement is a lot better,” said Pegula. “Now that I'm moving better, I'm also kind of learning how to win points on the defense and changing it into offense, which I thought I did pretty well today.”

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Said Azarenka, “Was that the best preparation for me? No. But try to sit here and find an excuse because of quarantine and this is just something that, as I said, it is what it is. I am disappointed that I wasn't able to perform that I knew I could.

“At the same time it's something, like, I don't know how to prepare after two weeks quarantine to play in six days match or five days match. I don't have a blueprint of how to prepare. So it's all about, like, trying to figure it out. I did not figure it out, not this time.”

Azarenka also joked that the best practice she got in was striking balls against cushions. Clearly, that’s quite a distance from roughly 25 hours of hitting sessions in the Australian summer.

Despite that training deficit, the first seven games gave little indication of eventual disarray. While Azarenka hadn’t won a match at the Australian Open since 2016—absent three times—her status as both a two-time champion and last September’s resurgent run to the US Open final figured to give her the edge of experience, skill and confidence.

Pegula, meanwhile, was 0-1 in Melbourne and had only beaten a Top 20 player three times.

“I knew I had to settle in a little bit,” said Pegula. “I knew it was going to be tough. I didn't know if I was going to come out feeling super nervous, if she was going to be playing well or not.”

Showing her trademark brand of movement and power, Azarenka smothered Pegula on the way to a 5-2 first set lead. Serving at 5-3, she reached set point, only to double-fault, one of seven she struck today. Two games later, at 5-5, deuce, another double-fault opened the door for Pegula to construct a sparkling break point, the foundation laid down with several fine cross-court forehands, the 14-ball rally closed out with a crisp inside-out forehand winner.

With nary a trace of nerves, Pegula served out the set at 30, winning a disciplined 11-shot rally to finish it in 52 minutes.

Said Pegula, “I think I just tried to weather the storm. I ended up settling in and ended up playing pretty well to close the first set out. I'm really proud that I stayed in there.”

Three games into the second set, serving at 1-1, 15-all, Azarenka missed a first serve and loudly yelled a four-letter word that begins with “F.” She won that game, but at this point it wasn’t clear how she was going to shake off Pegula. The dazzling and poised Vika of New York was stale and flustered; less commando, more tuning fork, punctuated by inconsistency. Pegula, in the course of that first set having become Azarenka’s equal in the rallies, was moving well and attaining superb depth off both sides.

Serving at 2-2, 30-40, Azarenka sprayed a forehand approach shot wide. Pegula held comfortably. Still, for a player of Azarenka’s caliber, to be down a set and 4-2 was less a mountain than a hill.

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That is, so long as she could breathe. Down 2-4, but serving at 40-love, Azarenka bent over. Her breathing compromised, Azarenka called for a trainer and left the court for a medical evaluation. After the match, Azarenka noted how the hardest part of being inside her hotel room for two weeks was being denied fresh air.

Upon her return, Azarenka dropped four straight points, the last a lackluster netted backhand volley. One point away from a double-break deficit, Azarenka pounded a service winner, held, then broke Pegula to level the set at 4-all.

Just last week, Pegula had led Sofia Kenin by a set and 4-1, only to see the lead melt away versus the perpetually resolute Kenin. This time, she was up against an experienced but wounded opponent.

“I could tell she wasn't feeling well,” said Pegula. “That makes it honestly just as hard to close out the match because you see it happen all the time where someone maybe isn't feeling well, is injured, they kind of play with nothing to lose, which she kind of did for a few games there. I just tried to not focus on it, just keep playing my game, not let her dictate, not let her get the first ball. Yeah, I guess I just tried to focus on me.”

Once again, though, staleness surfaced. At 15-30, an Azarenka double-fault. At 15-40, a forehand flew well long.

And here was Pegula, one game away from the biggest win of her career. The first point of a game when trying to close out a set or match is pivotal. Pegula played it brilliantly, firing one deep ball after another to win a 13-ball rally. At 30-15, Pegula capped an 11-ball rally with a sharp backhand down-the-line winner. Match point at 40-15 was even smoother—a wide ace.

“I tried to keep my head down and not worry about who I was playing,” said Pegula, who will next play an Australian wild card: 218th-ranked Destanee Aiava, or former US Open champion Sam Stosur.

Hear more from Pegula on a recent episode of the TENNIS.com Podcast: