NEW YORK (AP) — Jessica Pegula is again within the quarterfinals on the U.S. Open after a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Diana Shnaider on Monday, her seventh journey to that spherical at a Grand Slam match. Now comes the arduous half: Pegula is 0-6 in main quarterfinals over her profession.

The No. 6-seeded Pegula, an American whose mother and father personal the NFL’s Buffalo Payments and NHL’s Buffalo Sabres, is on fairly a run in the mean time, having gained 13 of her previous 14 matches, all on arduous courts. That included her second consecutive title in Canada and an look within the remaining on the Cincinnati Open, the place she misplaced to No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka.

“I really feel like there’s been extra strain this yr, as a result of I did so properly coming into this match,” the 30-year-old Pegula stated. “I wish to preserve working my method and hopefully bringing my greatest tennis for the later rounds this time.”

Additionally returning to the quarterfinals was Karolina Muchova, a 6-3, 6-3 winner over No. 5 Jasmine Paolini, the runner-up on the French Open and Wimbledon this season. Muchova loved a breakthrough 2023, attending to the ultimate in Paris and the semifinals in New York, earlier than needing surgical procedure on her proper wrist in October, sidelining her for 10 months.

“This was my worst and most severe harm, I’d say. However, I imply, I like the game, so in my head, I used to be like, ’I’ll do every part I may to (get) higher and take a look at.’ And right here I’m immediately,” Muchova stated. “I’m only a actually completely happy child now.”

Pegula made it to the quarterfinals at Flushing Meadows two years in the past, earlier than shedding to No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who went on to win one among her 5 main championships. There could possibly be one other assembly in opposition to Swiatek looming: Pegula subsequent faces the winner of Monday night time’s match between Swiatek and No. 16 Liudmila Samsonova.

Three of Pegula’s six quarterfinal exits at Slams got here in opposition to a No. 1 participant — Swiatek twice and Ash Barty as soon as.

Requested throughout her on-court interview in Arthur Ashe Stadium what she must do to get to the semifinals this time, Pegula joked: “I at all times say I simply have to win the match to get to the semis, after which that’ll clear up every part, proper?”

She continued: “Hear, it doesn’t actually matter to me. I imply, each match is each match. I’ve at all times performed it like that. It simply so occurs to be (the) quarterfinals, however on the similar time, to have the ability to say I’ve been in that place many, many occasions is nice. So I simply need to preserve placing myself there and preserve making an attempt to play my recreation.”

That recreation labored fairly properly in opposition to the 18th-seeded Shnaider, a 20-year-old Russian who performed one season of school tennis at NC State and gained a silver medal in ladies’s doubles on the Paris Olympics.

Pegula compiled 22 winners, hit six aces, saved 7 of 9 break factors that she confronted and claimed 5 of Shnaider’s service video games.

“I really feel like I’m transferring so significantly better across the court docket,” Pegula stated, including that this was the “greatest, off the bottom, that I’ve felt.”

___

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

Howard Fendrich, The Related Press