NEW YORK (AP) — Jessica Pegula couldn’t do anything right at the start of her first Grand Slam semifinal. Her opponent in the US Open On Thursday evening, Karolina Muchova could do no wrong.

“I was completely exhausted, but she played unbelievably. She made me look like a novice,” Pegula said. “I was about to burst into tears because it was so embarrassing. She destroyed me.”

Pegula was able to shake off a slow start, recover from a set and a break deficit and defeat Muchova 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 to secure a place in the final at Flushing Meadows. The number 6 seed Pegulaa 30-year-old from New York, has won 15 of her last 16 matches and will face No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka for the title on Saturday.

Sabalenka, second last year Coco Gauff at the US Open, returned to the final by fending off a late attack and No. 13 Emma Navarro the United States 6-3, 7-6 (2).

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

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

Early Thursday, things didn’t look promising for Pegula. Not at all.

Muchova, the runner-up of the 2023 French Open but unseeded after will be absent for around 10 months due to wrist surgeryused every ounce of her versatility and creativity, the qualities that make her so hard to beat on any surface. The slices. The feel at the net. The serve-and-volley. Ten of the first twelve winners of the match came from her racket. The first set lasted 28 minutes and Muchova won 30 of the 44 points.

After winning eight of the first nine games, Muchova was one point away from taking a 3-0 lead in the second set, but she failed to capitalize on a break chance and botched a forehand volley after a slice from Pegula, and everything changed.

“I thought, ‘Okay. That was kind of lucky. You’re still in it,'” Pegula said. “It’s really little moments that turn the momentum around.”

The 52nd seed Muchova quickly went from not being able to miss a shot to not being able to hit one. And Pegula turned it up, following the advice of both her coaches to vary her serves and spins to attack Muchova’s backhand more. Most importantly, Pegula demonstrated the confident brand of tennis that saw her eliminate No. 1 Iga Swiatek, a five-time major winner, in straight sets on Wednesday. Before that breakthrough, Pegula had lost 6-0 in the quarterfinals of majors.

It took a while for Pegula to play so well on Thursday, but once she got going, she was really good, winning nine of 11 games in total, a period that allowed her to not only turn the second set around, but also take a 3-0 lead in the third.

“I found a way, found some adrenaline, found my legs again. And then at the end of the second set, in the third set, I started playing the way I wanted to play. It took a while,” Pegula said. “I don’t know how I changed that.”

Muchova, a 28-year-old Czech, had not dropped a set in the tournament up to that point, but then she began to falter. After scoring 7 of 7 points at the net in the first set, she scored 15 of 29 points in the rest of the set. After only seven unforced errors in the first set, she scored 33 in the second and third sets.

And all the while, the crowd in Arthur Ashe Stadium, which had been rather indifferent at the beginning – except for the occasional shout of “Come on, Jess!” – was going wild.

When things suddenly got quite close in the second set of the first semifinal and the spectators were cheering loudly for Navarro, Sabalenka felt like she was back in 2023, when a loud crowd in Ashe was loudly supporting Gauff.

“Last year was a very tough experience. A very tough lesson. Today in the match I thought, ‘No, no, no, Aryna. This will not happen again. You have to control your emotions. You have to focus on yourself,'” said Sabalenka, a 26-year-old from Belarus who has been champion in the last two tournaments. Australian Open.

With her usual style of high-risk but high-reward tennis, Sabalenka produced 34 winners and 34 unforced errors – landing most of her groundstrokes with a scream – and in a fitting piece of symmetry, Navarro had 13 winners and 13 unforced errors.

Navarro remained undeterred in the second set despite trailing for a long time and, as the noise around her grew louder, she broke Sabalenka when she tried to serve for the win at 5-4.

“I wasn’t ready to finish the game,” Navarro said.

But in the ensuing tiebreak, Sabalenka took the lead after Navarro had led 2-0 and secured every remaining point.

“At the end of the second set, I really pushed myself,” said Navarro, who beat Gauff in the fourth round, “and I felt like I could definitely make it to the third round. But I didn’t manage that.”

As the tournament concluded, thousands of ticket holders applauded Sabalenka for her latest masterpiece on hard court, which is the fourth consecutive year she has reached the final of a major played on this surface.

“Well, guys, now you’re cheering me on,” laughs Sabalenka. “Well, it’s a bit late.”

___

AP Tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis