NEW YORK – Jessica Pegula has a quarterfinal problem.
She isn’t the only one affected among the feisty group of Americans still alive at the U.S. Open, but she is the only one so over stalling out at the quarterfinal stage of a Grand Slam that she brought a Heineken tallboy into the last one she lost at the U.S. Open in 2022.
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“I go back and forth. I’m like, ‘Oh, I should be positive,’ but at the same time … it just sucks. Like, it sucks,” Pegula said then, at which point she was 0-4 in Grand Slam quarterfinals.
She has lost two more since, but she will get another chance after her disciplined, 6-4, 6-2 win Monday over Diana Shnaider at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Pegula, who is one of the most thoughtful players on tour in a news conference, then sat patiently through the same round of questioning she always gets after her win. Asked on court by ESPN’s Rennae Stubbs what it’s going to take for her to reach the next level, Pegula plastered on a smile and said, “I just need to win a match to get to the semis, and then it will solve everything, right?” Asked about an hour later in a news conference how she can turn her vast experience at this stage into an asset, she said, without heat: “I don’t know. I don’t really know the answer to that.”
She twice repeated the truism that every match is different and thus requires a different approach. She doesn’t know how she will feel Wednesday until she steps on court and for the seventh time tries to reach a Grand Slam semifinal. She could be playing the third major quarterfinal of her career against world No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who faced Liudmila Samsonova in the fourth round later Monday.
No. 13 seed Emma Navarro joins Pegula as the other American woman in the quarterfinals and faces No. 26 Paula Badosa of Spain. Tuesday is only Navarro’s second Grand Slam quarterfinal after she reached the same stage at Wimbledon, so she can’t share in her more veteran countrywoman’s frustration.
But on the men’s side, Pegula isn’t alone.
Taylor Fritz is 0-4 in Grand Slam quarterfinals since his breakthrough at Wimbledon in 2022. From one perspective, this is progress – in recent years, the American tennis world practically set off Fourth of July fireworks anytime more than one American man made the fourth round of a Grand Slam following a low point in 2021, when for the first time in the 48-year history of computerized rankings there were no American men among the world’s top 30.
Three years later, Fritz, the No. 12 seed, and No. 20 seed Frances Tiafoe will play quarterfinal matches Tuesday in New York. Tommy Paul, the No. 14 seed, faces No. 1 Jannik Sinner in the fourth round later Monday.
Both Tiafoe and Paul have advanced to one Grand Slam semifinal. Fritz has yet to cross the Rubicon.
“In the past I’ve been very, very excited, very happy to make quarterfinals at slams,” Fritz said Sunday. “I think I’m at the point now where I’m still happy to make quarterfinals, but I wouldn’t be happy with it ending here.”
No American man has won a Grand Slam trophy since Andy Roddick won the U.S. Open in 2003, and the path to the title remains treacherous as long as Sinner is still playing. But with defending champion Carlos Alcaraz and 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic eliminated, Fritz and Tiafoe’s section of the draw has opened up.
Tiafoe, playing his most focused tennis in years, plays No. 9 seed Grigor Dimitrov in the quarterfinals. The Bulgarian veteran has a 3-1 record against Tiafoe, but three of those matches took place more than four years ago. Dimitrov most recently beat the Marylander on grass at Wimbledon last year.
Should Tiafoe triumph, he will face either Fritz or No. 4 seed Alexander Zverev, who will play a rematch of the fourth-round Wimbledon match Fritz won in July – after which Zverev had plenty to say.
“I was on one leg today,” the German said, insinuating Fritz triumphed only because he was injured. Asked about an extended moment at the net after the match, Zverev said he told Fritz he took issue with cheers coming from Fritz’s box from people who were “not from the tennis world.” Fritz’s coaching box contained his team of tennis professionals; his parents, both of whom played tennis; and his girlfriend, Morgan Riddle, who is a popular influencer. Two of Riddle’s Instagram posts went viral after the Wimbledon match, one in which she wrote “cheer loud ladies” and another that featured a video of her celebrating after the match with the caption “when ur man wins 4 the girls.”
Both were interpreted as references to allegations of domestic violence against Zverev by two of his former partners – Zverev reached an out-of-court settlement to resolve a court case brought by one of the women hours before he played a French Open semifinal in June. Riddle later deleted the posts and said they were “blown out of proportion,” and both Zverev and Fritz have said there is no bad blood between them.
Fritz stuck to tennis when asked Sunday how he felt about what happened at Wimbledon. When he was asked more broadly about what it’s going to take for him to finally reach a Grand Slam semifinal, he followed Pegula’s lead.
“It’s impossible to not know that there’s more of an opportunity with how the draw has opened up. It’s still the same as it’s been for me: Take it one match at a time. Worry about the person that’s in front of me, and we’ll go from there,” Fritz said. “But, yeah, it’s been a good week so far. The success in slams has been nice, but I am a little bit sick of just making it to the quarterfinals.”
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