American tennis player Jessica Pegula lost in the U.S. Open women's singles final on Saturday to Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, who won both sets 7-5.
Pegula fought back after falling behind, as she had done throughout the tournament, and Sabalenka won the first set and then led 3-0 in the second, but Pegula won the next five sets before Sabalenka won the next four to close out the match.
Sabalenka had won 11 straight matches and 22 of her last 23 sets entering the match, as the 26-year-old Belarusian won her third Grand Slam title after two previous Australian Open titles.
Pegula has won 15 of her last 16 matches, all on hard courts like those used at Flushing Meadows, with her lone loss coming to Sabalenka in last month's Cincinnati Open final, where she was once again beaten by Sabalenka on merit after a remarkable run to the final.
Pegula, a 30-year-old from New York who is seeded sixth, is playing in her first Grand Slam final. She was 0-6 in major quarterfinals before beating top-seeded Iga Swiatek in Wednesday's quarterfinal.
The two players had completely different backgrounds and tennis upbringings.
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Aryna Sabalenka reacts after making a mistake in the 2024 US Open women's singles final. (Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images)
Pegula is upstate New York royalty: Her parents, Terry and Kim Pegula, are owners of the NFL's Buffalo Bills and the NHL's Buffalo Sabres, and the family net worth is more than $7.5 billion.
Jessica Pegula with her mother in September 2021 Bill's Pod Squad She said on the podcast that she owes her sporting success to her parents.
“My dad and I are like oil and water on the tennis court, we don't mix well,” she said with a laugh, “but he always encouraged me to try harder. Try hard, always try harder, you can always outdo someone else, that sort of thing. He's very old-fashioned.”
She added that her mother has helped her stay healthy behind the scenes.
“Off the court, I tried to be healthy with my diet, my recovery, my training.”
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Buffalo Bills owners Kim and Terry Pegula (Brett Carlsen/Getty Images/File)
Sabalenka was born in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, and her father, Sergey Sabalenka, was a Belarusian ice hockey player who unintentionally introduced her to tennis.
“One day, my dad was driving me somewhere and we saw a tennis court on the way, so he took me to the court. I loved tennis and I had fun, and that's how it started,” she said in the interview. Tennis Majors In August.
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Jessica Pegula hits a return shot in the 2024 U.S. Open women's singles final. (Robert Deutsch/Imagn Images)
Her father passed away in 2019 at the age of 43 and will not be able to see her win her first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in 2023 and 2024. Still, the title wins have helped her get closer to achieving her father's dream.
“I lost my father four years ago,” she told reporters after the match. “We had one dream: to win two Grand Slam titles by the time I was 25,” she said after her win over Cheng Keum Wen in this year's Australian Open final.
Sabalenka could win her first Grand Slam title before she turns 25 at the 2023 Australian Open, and her second before she turns 26 this year, which is her birthday in May.
Sabalenka also lost her boyfriend this year when Konstantin Koltsov, a Belarusian ice hockey player for the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins, committed suicide in March at the age of 42.
Sabalenka has now won her third Grand Slam title and is looking to add another at the Australian Open in January.
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