‘A huge momentum change’ – How racquet change sparked Iga Swiatek win over Jessica Pegula at US Open

Ninth seed Pegula had the better of the early exchanges of the match and broke to lead 3-2.

She was 30-0 up in the next game when Swiatek opted to switch racquets.

Swiatek then reeled off four points in a row to break and only dropped two more points in the set.

“It was definitely a huge momentum change,” said Pegula, who was the last American left in the women’s draw.

“I think it helped her a lot. So it was a good move by her. She knew the ball was flying on her a little bit and needed to change racquets.

“Her ball was landing a little shorter. I felt like I wasn’t maybe moving up to it. I just made a few stupid errors. She started playing a little bit better. I was just going for too much. The games kind of flew by, went really quickly. Next thing I knew, I lost the set 6-3.

“I was used to her making errors. She maybe hit a couple balls, and I think I was just thrown off with the rhythm. Then I started missing everything for literally the rest of the set. So yeah, I broke her, then just totally lost like every single ball, felt like I was missing every single ball.”

Reflecting on her decision, world No. 1 Swiatek said: “Today I realised that I need extra help from the racquet and the string itself because Jessie is such a tough opponent that you can just lose two more points. I realised that it may be better to switch racquets even though I’m only switching after the ball change.

“I think it helped me a lot. I think also the conditions helped me because it was colder today. The ball wasn’t flying as much.

“I don’t know if it actually was the key or something. For sure I wasn’t thinking about the strings, and I just focused on the right stuff after the change.”

The second set was much more back-and-forth, featuring 10 breaks of serve and eventually decided on a tie-break in Swiatek’s favour.

It is the first time Swiatek has reached the semi-finals of the US Open.

“I feel like it just clicked,” she said. “I was able today to use my intuition a little bit more. I didn’t force myself to do every step right, all this technical stuff that I’ve been working on. It was more natural today.

“I was able to focus on just more basic stuff. That was nice because I didn’t have thousands of things to improve in my head. I was just playing a little bit better.

“I wouldn’t say there was one main thing because I did what I wanted to do since the beginning of the tournament. But I feel for sure like it clicked and it was much, much easier to do that today, and to keep the focus as well.”

Swiatek will next face sixth seed Aryna Sabalenka after she beat 22nd seed Karolina Pliskova to make the US Open semis for the second year in a row.

The pair have already met three times this season with Swiatek winning in comfortable fashion on each occasion.

“Here it’s a Grand Slam,” said Swiatek. “For the first time we’re going to play against each other in a Grand Slam. So I don’t know how it’s going to be.

“For sure I’m going to be working to keep my level of focus, determination the same way. We played each other couple of times, so we know each other. It’s going to be pretty similar situation.”

– – –