Jessica Pegula eyes 1st Slam semifinal at Australian Open

At the draw ceremony for the seasonending WTA Finals in October the emcee called Jessica Pegula to the front of the room and asked the 28yearold American about her championship at an event in Mexico a handful of days earlierHe called it the biggest title of her career Pegula politely corrected him Biggest title so far she said emphasizing those last two wordsPegula chuckled when asked about that exchange during an interview with The Associated PressI didnt mean to say that but thats good that I said that she saidSo far that is my biggest title so thats factual and true but also hopefully definitely not the lastPegulas had a winding journey in professional tennis and at the Australian Open she is hoping to add by far her most significant trophy yet When she steps on court to face 201213 champion Victoria Azarenka on Tuesday Pegula will be appearing in the quarterfinals for the third year in a row at Melbourne Park and for the fifth time overall at a major all in the past 24 monthsThe No 3 Pegula is the highestseeded woman remaining with No 1 Iga Swiatek and No 2 Ons Jabeur eliminatedI have a great shot here All around throughout the whole tournament Ive been playing the best I have she said Sunday after beating 2021 French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova 75 62 in the fourth roundPegula relies on terrific returning shes won a tournamenthigh 6437 of games served by opponents and strong defense She uses a flat forehand and backhand slice shes won 6137 of points played at the baseline secondbest so farShe plays quite simple which is I would say a compliment Azarenka said likening that aspect of Pegulas approach to former No 1 Ash Barty who just did certain things so well over and over and over againPegula is 04 so far in Slam quarterfinals with losses to Jennifer Brady at the 2021 Australian Open Barty at the 2022 Australian Open and Swiatek at the 2022 French Open and 2022 US OpenAlso readIga Swiatek I felt the pressureI guess currently seedingwise Im the favourite Pegula saidI would say it feels differentAnd its a long way from her trying times over the last decade There was a 2013 knee problem that required surgery but she worked her way back from that and earned a Grand Slam maindraw debut at the 2015 US Open by beating 2009 US Open quarterfinalist Melanie Oudin in the last round of qualifyingThen came another health setback A hip operation that kept Pegula out of action for more than half of 2017 dropping her ranking to No 860 and sending her to lowerlevel ITF eventsAgain she regrouped and returned claiming her first WTA title at Washington in 2019 That came shortly after beginning to work with Venus Williams former coach David Witt who has pointed to the way Pegula started believing in herself more that she belongs up thereIn Grand Slam action Pegula went through a sevenmatch losing streak that ended with a thirdround showing at the 2020 US Open and she delivered her initial major quarterfinal five months later in AustraliaMore steps have followed she called them minibreakthroughs including cracking the top 10 last yearI was like Wow I broke through there because I didnt have a great Slam record Then after that it was winning my first WTA event That was a big one Pegula said So theres all these little milestones I guess you could call them I think it just kept building my confidence as I went along I wouldnt say there was like a huge turning pointAnother could come this week The PegulaAzarenka winner will face whoever emerges from Tuesdays quarterfinal between 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina and 2017 French Open champion Jelena OstapenkoThe fourthround matches on the bottom half of the draw were scheduled for Monday Aryna Sabalenka vs Belinda Bencic Donna Vekic vs Linda Fruhvirtova Caroline Garcia vs Magda Linette and Karolina Pliskova vs Zhang ShuaiPegulas own calendar included two sporting events Monday At 7 am local time 3 pm Sunday EST the NFL team thats owned by her parents the Buffalo Bills hosted the Cincinnati Bengals in the playoffs and Pegula was planning to wake up early so she could watch Buffalo lost 2710She caught part of the Bills AFC wildcard win over the Miami Dolphins before playing her firstround match in Melbourne and has been wearing a patch on her skirt with the No 3 jersey number of Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin who went into cardiac arrest during a game three weeks agoThen on Monday afternoon Pegula and Coco Gauff teamed up to reach the quarterfinals in womens doubles by beating Aldila Sutjiadi and Miyu Kato 64 62I hope Gauff said about Pegulas singles title ambitions she wins itThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever