Pegula fights back to reach first Wimbledon quarter-final since 2023
Down a set to an 18-year-old compatriot, Jessica Pegula (No 4) simply stopped missing – and Iva Jovic (No 16) came apart, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1. At 32 the American is into a 10th Grand Slam quarter-final.
Jessica Pegula, Wimbledon 2026 | © Imago / PsNewz
American No 4 seed Jessica Pegula recovered from a set down to beat 18-year-old compatriot Iva Jovic, the No 16 seed, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 at Wimbledon on Sunday and reach the quarter-finals for the first time since 2023. The all-American meeting spanned a generation – Pegula is 32, Jovic 18 – and swung decisively once the elder player found her range on return.
The victory carried Pegula into a 10th Grand Slam quarter-final and into rare company. She became only the second player in the Open Era, alongside Germany’s Helga Masthoff, to reach each of her first 10 women’s singles Grand Slam quarter-finals after turning 26. A late arrival to the sport’s biggest stages, Pegula did not reach a single major quarter-final between 2015 and 2020; she has now made 10 from 2021 to 2026.
“My coach told me : ‘You’re reacting a bit instead of being proactive’. I felt like I was getting into this ping-pong match with her”, Pegula said. “There were some really close games at the end of the second and the third. That was just me committing to having a lot of energy, moving forward, being aggressive when I needed to.”
Pegula’s return game turns a one-set deficit around
Jovic edged a tight opening set, but the match turned on her serve. From 1-1 in the second, the teenager was broken five times in seven games as Pegula tightened her grip except once at 4-1 for her in the same set. Pegula won 55 percent of her receiving points to Jovic’s 45, the decisive gap on the day.
Jovic’s first delivery, so dependable early, thinned out: she landed 55 percent of first serves and won just 48 percent of the points behind them across the match, down from 58 and 53 percent in the set she had taken.
“I didn’t serve well the whole match”, Jovic said. “In the first set I got away with it because she was also serving a lower percentage, so I was able to break her a lot. I was living and dying off being able to break serve. She made the adjustment, started playing with more spin on her serve, breaking my rhythm on the returns, and her first-serve percentage went up. Mine stayed low. You can’t get broken that many times. I think my first-serve percentage was under 50%. You can’t beat a top-five player with that.”
“You get almost a little anxious if you’re not feeling your serve, because then you feel the pressure of playing behind your second”, Jovic added. “It deteriorates your game when you don’t have the confidence that you can hold. Then I got even more anxious trying to go for these big serves, instead of going for less and trusting from the ground. It’s the panic that gets in when you feel you’re not serving well. I’d love to see what someone like Aryna does in those moments – I could take a page from their book.”
Pegula looked in fine form, her backhand growing ever more clinical as the match wore on. She had reached the last 16 without dropping a set, seeing off Spain’s Jessica Bouzas Maneiron Sara Sorribes Tormo and Czech Darja Vidmanova, while Jovic had ousted No 18 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova of Russia on her way through.
Pegula next meets the winner of No 11 seed Belinda Bencic and No 7 seed Coco Gauff. On this evidence she will fancy the meeting: if she keeps finding the lines she hit across the final two sets, a second Grand Slam title is not beyond her.
Wimbledon 2026, Women’s single, 4th round
A. Sabalenka [1] vs N. Osaka [14] – Sunday
K. Muchova [10] vs B. Krejcikova – Sunday
J. Pegula [4] d. I. Jovic [16]: 4-6, 6-3, 6-1
C. Gauff [7] vs B. Bencic [11] – Sunday
M. Kostyuk [12] vs A. Krueger (Q) – Monday
J. Paolini [13] vs A. Eala [29] – Monday
M. Keys [26] vs L. Noskova [9] – Monday
M. Bouzkova [21] vs E. Mertens [25] – Monday
