Seven points on serve, all night
Seven. That is how many points Jessica Pegula lost behind her serve on Wednesday night in New York, and she never faced a break point at all. The No. 3 seed beat fellow American Sofia Kenin 6-3, 6-1. Fifty-six minutes, start to finish.
Eighteen winners, eight unforced errors. The match effectively ended when Pegula broke for 3-1 in the first, then ran off seven games in a row across both sets.
Two years ago the same matchup looked nothing like this. At the 2024 US Open, Pegula had to survive a first-set tiebreak against the 2020 Australian Open champion before getting through. She now leads the head-to-head 5-2.
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The serve that took months of practice-court reps
“I knew it was going to be tough today. Sonya has given me a lot of problems in the past,” Pegula said afterward. “She’s a great player and a champion, so I was just trying to stay locked in on what I had to do.”
Asked about the serving, she talked about the work nobody watches. “I’m going pretty hard on my second serves, trying to mix up the spots and trust myself to hit good serves at the right time. It’s a lot of work done off court, so I’m really happy when I can repeat something in practice and it pays off in a match.”
The 2024 runner-up at Flushing Meadows has now made the third round here seven years running. Nobody else on tour has that kind of streak in New York.
Fernandez next, Ostapenko gone
Leylah Fernandez is next. The Canadian, seeded 31st, put away Thailand’s Mananchaya Sawangkaew 6-4, 6-1. Two former finalists, then: Fernandez made the final here in 2021, aged 19.
Jelena Ostapenko was the only seed to go out on the women’s side Wednesday. The Latvian, No. 30, lost 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 to Germany’s Tatjana Maria in a first-round match pushed back by rain.
Elsewhere: Marta Kostyuk beat 2017 champion Sloane Stephens 6-1, 7-5. Karolina Muchova took apart Britain’s Katie Boulter 6-1, 6-0 in under an hour. France’s Diane Parry fell to Sorana Cirstea 6-2, 7-5. Rain wrecked the schedule for a second day, with play carrying on under the roofs at Arthur Ashe and Louis Armstrong.
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