Pegula, ranked fourth in the world, beat Stearns with a straightforward 6-3, 6-4 in the round of 16 to set up a meeting with Elina Svitolina in the quarterfinals Friday.
She owns a 2-1 record against the Ukrainian, who has been on a tear since her return from maternity leave this spring.
“Yeah, it’s going to be a different match probably than the previous times I have played her,” Pegula said. “I can just tell from watching her matches, I feel like she has a new perspective. So many things going on in her life. She’s kind of come back and reset really nicely. She’s been competing really, really well and playing, like, very fearless. It’s definitely going to be different.”
Earlier Thursday, second-seeded Caroline Garcia, ranked sixth in the world, was upset by another Ukrainian, Marta Kostyuk, 6-2, 6-3.
Pegula followed Garcia on court around 3:30 p.m. as the skies turned ominously gray and the wind picked up. The breezy conditions made little difference. Pegula, 29, is the top-ranked American and has won 32 matches this year, the fourth most in the WTA. Her experienced showed against Stearns, who lost her second match in the qualifying tournament to Hailey Baptiste but gained a spot in the draw as a lucky loser after Sofia Kenin withdrew because of a left thigh injury.
Stearns displayed sharp shot placement, but Pegula is one of the most dogged returners on tour. She chased down Stearns’s groundstrokes with ease and was never rattled against the 59th-ranked player in the world.
It was another good day in what has already been a good week for Pegula off the tennis court.
On Sunday, Pegula’s mother, Kim, who is the president and owner of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills alongside her husband, Terry, returned to watch training camp for the first time since she went into cardiac arrest in her sleep just over a year ago.
Her mother’s recovery has been a source of immense stress and motivation for Pegula, who sat beside her hospital bed for days in June before leaving to head back to work — in this case, Wimbledon. As her mother made a slow but steady recovery, Pegula played the best tennis of her career, making the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open for the first time, rising to third in the world in October and making the quarterfinals of the Australian Open in January.
“What she’s improved on is her confidence and her belief in herself, to be honest,” said Rennae Stubbs, the television analyst and coach. “She’s always had the game; she’s always hit the ball really, really solidly and well. She’s worked on her serve; she has different iterations of the serve through the years. … The bottom line is the fact that she’s built her confidence up now to the point where she feels like she belongs here is great.”
Pegula has now made the quarterfinals in all four Grand Slams, a feat she reached last month when she was one of the final eight standing on the grass for the first time at Wimbledon, where she lost to the eventual champion, Marketa Vondrousova.
It was a nice milestone, she said at the time. “Obviously, I hope I can do more than that.”
To that end, Pegula is focusing on her singles play this week as her U.S. hard-court swing begins. She and Coco Gauff, her doubles partner, are both in Washington this week but agreed to forgo the doubles tournament for logistical reasons — as a former winner here in 2019, Pegula knows how rain delays can wreak havoc on a player’s schedule even while competing in just one draw — and to conserve energy with big tournaments in Cincinnati and Canada coming up before the U.S. Open. Pegula said they’re signed up to play doubles at all three events.
She won match point against Stearns just as rain began to fall in earnest at Rock Creek Park Tennis Center.
The win was an opportunity for Pegula to incorporate a list of elements in her game she has been fine-tuning with the practice she had between Wimbledon and her first match of the hard-court season — including those extra few non-match days this week.
“I’m not trying to drastically change anything or work on anything to, like, this crazy huge difference, but I think trying little things here and there, and I think that’s how you build confidence little by little,” Pegula said. “Slicing, coming in, going for a short volley. If that works, it’s great. If not, okay, you’re working on it. It’s just trying different things and not being afraid to try them but at the same time obviously still keeping your focus and your strategy on what you need to do against your opponent as well.”