MELBOURNE, Australia – Jessica Pegula’s first win over a Top 10 opponent gave the 26-year-old American her first trip to the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam tournament.
The 61st-seeded Pegula, whose parents own Buffalo’s NFL and NHL franchises, held on Monday (Sunday night EST) to beat Ukraine’s No. 5 seed Elina Svitolina 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 in Rod Laver Arena.
Pegula is on a big break. She has won four games at Melbourne Park in the past week – including wins over two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka and 2011 US Open champion Sam Stosur – after competing in the hard court tournament with a total of three wins at majors for her career.
Also important to Pegula, who works with former Venus Williams coach David Witt: she came into the day with a 0-6 record against Top 10 women.
With the sky blue and the temperature in the low 70s Fahrenheit (low 20s Celsius), and zero fans in the stands for the third day in a row due to a local COVID-19 lockdown, Pegula dictated ground exchanges from the right along the baseline.
In the beginning, she shot around two-time Grand Slam semi-finalist Svitolina, who knocked out American teen Coco Gauff in the second round, then picked up a set and a break at 1-0 in the second round.
Until then, Pegula had not been broken.
But that’s where Svitolina, slipping everything away, took a stand. She suddenly broke Pegula twice in a row, part of a four-game run that gave Svitolina a 4-1 lead in the second on her way to a third set.
As if she flipped a switch, or remembered what worked so well before, Pegula returned to her more aggressive hit-to-the-corners game and led 4-1. She did get broken to 4-3, but broke right back and then served up the most important win of her career by taking the last four points after falling behind at love-30.
Pegula will play the winner of the game that followed at Rod Laver Arena: No. 22 Jennifer Brady of the United States vs. No. 28 Donna Vekic from Croatia.
The women’s last two games in the fourth round were No. 1 Ash Barty against unseeded American Shelby Rogers and No. 18 Elise Mertens against Karolina Muchova.