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 No. 7 seed Coco Gauff in another all-American showdown as Gauff bested No. 11 seed Belinda Bencic in three sets.

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. 

"I played her three times, three different surfaces, which is kind of funny," Pegula said to press. "She's actually very good on all surfaces. I don't think there's one where I felt she wasn't as good or way better. I felt like her level was pretty much the same."

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. Both were struggling on their serves too. 

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. 

"As far as the first set, we had a lot of breaks," Pegula said. I was still returning well. I just told myself to pick up the first-serve percentage, get some more first-serve free points, quick points. Change up the pace on that.

"My coach just kind of told me 'You're reacting a bit instead of actually being proactive. I was just reacting. I think we play honestly pretty similar where we both absorb pace very well. I was kind of getting into this ping-pong match with her."

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.  

"For me, 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 said to press. "It just a little bit deteriorates your game when you don't have the confidence that you can hold. I think that's what kind of happened."

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.

"I was kind of just living and dying off of being able to break serve," Jovic added. "She made the adjustment and she started playing with a little more spin on her serve and breaking my rhythm on the returns and making her first-serve percentage go up. Mine stayed low."

"Little disappointed in myself that I wasn't able to make better adjustments with that. Something I really need to work on."