Clay, hard & now grass court, Pegula completes Jovic trilogy at Wimbledon

WIMBLEDON -- No. 4 seed Jessica Pegula is into her second Wimbledon quarterfinal. 

Defeating No. 16 seed, Iva Jovic 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 in all-American fourth rounder, Pegula advances to the elite eight at Wimbledon for the first time since 2023 and her second Grand Slam quarterfinal of 2026. She awaits the winner of No. 7 seed Coco Gauff and No. 11 Belinda Bencic, who will close play on No. 1 Court. 

The win also marks Pegula's competed surface trilogy in 2026 against Jovic. In their two previous meetings on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz, Pegula defeated Jovic 6-4, 6-2 on Dubai's hard courts, and 6-4, 5-7, 6-3 on Charleston's green-clay courts, both tournaments that Pegula went on to lift the trophy. 

Both players felt this matchup as if they were playing each other in a way. Ahead of their Dubai meeting, Pegula described Jovic as a "mini-me" -- taking the ball early, returning hard up the middle and changing direction on the backhand -- and Jovic said Pegula was one of the players she was told to watch growing up. 

"Hopefully, I can play our game better," Jovic said after her third-round win.

As much as they've come to know each other, the change of surfaces brought a new dynamic to the matchup as Pegula said they had never practiced on the surface together. 

Initially, it felt a little bit uncharacteristic for both players during the first set. Statistically, both players only had five winners each in the set, and those were overshadowed with Pegula's 16 unforced errors and Jovic's 12. 

In their previous two -- and only -- meetings, Jovic managed to break Pegula's serve just three times combined, and all three of those came in the three-set thriller in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Sunday, Jovic broke Pegula four times in the first set alone as Pegula won just 6-of-17 first service points in the opening set. In fairness, Pegula also converted three breaks of her own, but the ensuing game, Jovic responded as Pegula dropped her first set of the tournament. 

After dropping the first set, Pegula seemed to have a 180 turnaround in the second. Aside from the 6-3 scoreline, Pegula's first-service point win rate jumped to more than 80%, and she was broken just once -- the final time in the match -- while breaking Jovic twice more en route to a total of eight. The visible frustrations started to trickle away and turn into energetic "C'mons" as she started to find a more consistent rhythm in the match.  

That momentum built into the third set too as Pegula went up a break and led 3-0. It wasn't just any standard break for Pegula, as she trailed 0-40 in Jovic's service game and rattled off five straight points to win it. Though Jovic managed to get a key hold at 3-1, Pegula won another stretch of three games to be the first quarterfinalist at this year's Championships.

More to come...