Jessica Pegula on repeatedly meeting Iga Swiatek deep in tournaments, including US Open QF: "I don't mind... But it's weird"

Jessica Pegula defeated Iga Swiatek at the 2024 US Open quarterfinals in what was their 10th encounter on tour. The pair has faced each other in multiple finals and semifinals, and while the American doesn’t mind facing the World No. 1 deep in tournaments, she admits it feels a bit strange.

Swiatek had not lost a set on her way to the quarterfinal and had not faced a break point in her last three matches. However, Pegula brought her A-game and was dominant against the Pole to break her twice in the first set and win it 6-2.

In a more tightly contested second set, Pegula broke Swiatek to make it 2-1 but the World No. 1 broke back to make it 3-3. In the seventh game, the American squandered two break points but managed to break in the third and eventually win the set 6-4.

With the win, Pegula closed the gap with Swiatek in their head-to-head to 4-6. Out of their 10 encounters, three each have been quarterfinals and semifinals and two have been finals. During the post-match press conference, Pegula was asked if she would like to face the Pole more often in tournaments, to which she replied:

"She's [Swiatek] the number one player in the world. I don't know if I want to play her that much, but deeper in tournaments, you're going to have to play somebody good, so I don't mind having to play her," Jessica Pegula said.

"I would prefer to play her on hard court and not clay. I definitely don't think I'd want to see her at the French Open very early, but yeah. It's weird, I feel like we've played quite a bit," she added.

Eventually, she seemed to like the idea of playing Swiatek more often as it is 'always an honor'.

"Having the challenge of playing the best player in the world is always an honor, and I think something you're going to have to do eventually, so why not do it more often, I guess?" Pegula said.

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Jessica Pegula applied her learnings from her previous encounter with Iga Swaitek in US Open 2024 QF win

Iga Swiatek and Jessica Pegula. (Image: Getty)

Jessica Pegula's last encounter against Iga Swiatek was at the 2023 WTA Finals where the Pole decimated the American 6-1, 6-0. The 30-year-old reversed the result and won in straight sets at the US Open quarterfinal against Swiatek. Pegula referred to the WTA Finals meeting and said that she came into the New York Major encounter with her learnings from that match.

"I think today I wanted to come out playing the way I wanted to play," Pegula said in her post-match interview.

"I had an idea in my mind of what I learned from the last time I played her at Finals and play kind of within myself and then just see where she was at... I could tell right away she was frustrated on the serve," she added.

Pegula finished the match with 12 winners to 22 unforced errors, while Swiatek, despite matching her winner count, committed 41 unforced errors.

Pegula will face Karolina Muchova in the semifinal of the US Open on Thursday, September 5.