Jessica Pegula, part of sports dynasty, makes name for herself on the court
Jessica Pegula’s first victory over a Top 10 opponent earned the 25-yearold American her first trip to the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament.
The 61st-ranked Pegula, whose parents own Buffalo’s NFL and NHL franchises, held on to beat No. 5 seed Elina Svitolina of Ukraine 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 in Rod Laver Arena on Monday (Sunday night EST).
Pegula is on quite a breakthrough run. She has won four matches at Melbourne Park over the past week — including victories over two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka and 2011 U.S. Open champion Sam Stosur — after entering the hard-court tournament with a total of three wins at majors for her career.
Also significant for Pegula, who works with Venus Williams’ former coach, David Witt: She came into the day with an 0-6 record against Top 10 women.
In men’s action, No. 4 seed Daniil Medvedev got to the quarterfinals at Melbourne Park for the first time by eliminating 192nd-ranked American Mackenzie McDonald 6-4, 6-2, 6-3 in 1 1/2 hours. Medvedev, the 2019 U.S. Open runner-up, will play Andrey Rublev or Casper Ruud next.
Also on Monday’s schedule: 20time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal against No. 16 Fabio Fognini.
With the sky blue and the temperature in the low 70s Fahrenheit (low 20s Celsius), and no fans in the stands for the third day in a row because of a local COVID-19 lockdown, Pegula dictated groundstroke exchanges from right along the baseline.
In the early going, she pushed around two-time Grand Slam semifinalist Svitolina, who eliminated American teenager Coco Gauff in the second round, and went up by a set and a break at 1-0 in the second.
Up until then, Pegula had not been broken.
But that’s where Svitolina, everything slipping away, made a stand. She suddenly broke Pegula twice in a row, part of a four-game run that put Svitolina ahead 4-1 in the second on the way to forcing a third set.
As if flipping a switch, or remembering what worked so well earlier, Pegula returned to her more aggressive brand of hit-tothe-corners play and led 4-1. She did get broken to 4-3, but broke right back, then served out the most important victory of her career by grabbing the last four points after falling behind love30.
Pegula plays the winner of the match that followed in Rod Laver Arena: No. 22 Jennifer Brady of the United States vs. No. 28 Donna Vekic of Croatia.
The last two women’s fourthround matches were No. 1 Ash Barty vs. unseeded American Shelby Rogers, and No. 18 Elise Mertens vs. Karolina Muchova.
Injured Djokovic advances to quarters. Novak Djokovic wore tape above his right hip, and winced when he stretched for some shots in a three-hour match against Milos Raonic that will go into the records as his 300th win at a major.
For anyone curious about the severity of his injury, he put it into context after qualifying for the Australian Open quarterfinals for the 12th time.
“If it’s any other tournament than a Grand Slam then I would retire, withdraw from the event, that’s for sure,” Djokovic said in an on-court TV interview Sunday following his 7-6 (4), 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 fourth-round victory. “When it warmed up it was fine. During the match it was kind of on and off.”
The eight-time Australian Open champion planned to spend most of the next two days recovering ahead of his quarterfinal against sixth-seeded Alexander Zverev.
That’s pretty much how he spent his time after injuring an abdominal muscle in his five-set, third-round win over Taylor Fritz.
A lot of recovery, a lot of time getting physiotherapy and, he said, “different treatments with different devices. You know, just pills, painkillers and stuff like this with the medical team ... that definitely helped a lot.”
He didn’t practice on Saturday — he said he didn’t hit a ball — and didn’t know until he was warming up three hours before his match against Raonic whether or not he’d be fit enough to play Sunday’s late match on Rod Laver Arena.
In the end, he looked OK as he extended his career streak to 12-0 against the big-serving Canadian. He dropped his racket and hurdled an advertising hoarding in the first set, and later watched on as 14th-seeded Raonic had his right ankle re-taped during a medical time out in the second.