US Open 2026 pages
Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Quarter-finals
Jessica Pegula vs Emma Navarro
Quarter-finals
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Jessica Pegula to advance · locked 2026-09-07 04:20 UTCPrediction
This is the first all-American women's singles quarter-final at the US Open since Serena Williams beat Venus Williams in 2015 — and the near-miss year is worth knowing, because 2017 put four American women in this round and produced no all-American tie at all, the pairings only meeting in the semi-finals. Pegula has won all four of their meetings, most recently three weeks ago in Cincinnati, 7-5 6-2, and Navarro has taken a set in two of them. Tennis Abstract's hard-court Elo, last updated 31 August and therefore blind to this entire tournament, has Pegula fifth at 2063.9 and Navarro fifty-first at 1760.2 — a 304-point gap, which on Tennis Abstract's own published scale is about 85-15. That rank of 51 for a former semi-finalist here is not a glitch: Navarro is 15-15 on hard courts in 2026, a season interrupted by two months away with a thyroid problem that dropped her to 39th in the world. But she has beaten the seventh seed to get here, she is 4-2 against the top ten this year, and she beat Iga Swiatek at Bad Homburg in June. Against that, Pegula has spent 2h45 less on court, has reached the second week here for a fifth straight year, and is the more reliable version of the same shot — the flat, low ball off both wings that Navarro herself says is the problem. I take Pegula, shaded well down from the ratings, because the ratings have not seen either of them play this fortnight and one of them has spent it beating better players.
The case for Jessica Pegula
76% to winPegula is 4-0 against Navarro and has never lost to her on a hard court, in three attempts. She was the runner-up here in 2024 and a semi-finalist in 2025, and this is her fourth US Open quarter-final in five years. Her 2026 has titles in Dubai and Charleston, an Australian Open semi-final and a Cincinnati final in it, and she has more hard-court wins this season than anyone else on tour. She has conceded thirty games reaching this to Navarro's forty, and spent 5h55 on court to Navarro's 8h40. She has also come through the harder night: eleven breaks of serve in nineteen games against Sorana Cirstea, 46% first serves, and she still won it in an hour and twenty-five minutes.
The case for Emma Navarro
24% to winNavarro has beaten the better opponents. Karolina Muchova, the seventh seed, went in straight sets in the third round; Anna Kalinskaya, who had won both their previous meetings, went in 1h21 for the loss of ten unforced errors. She is 4-2 against the top ten in 2026 and she has been in this position before and gone further, reaching the semi-finals here in 2024 by beating the defending champion Coco Gauff in the fourth round. She knows exactly what she is walking into — "she probably hits the flattest ball on tour, keeps it low, can hit it short and flat or deep and it looks the same" — and she has the read on what to do about it: "I think I'll have to match that and try to get her out of her rhythm a little bit." She has lost to Pegula four times. "There's always that time when you get over the hump."
Both cases written 2026-09-07, before the first ball — frozen into the record exactly as written, whatever the result. The percentages are mine — opinions with a percent sign on. They add to 100 because tennis has no draw to hide the rounding in.
Tale of the tape
Jessica PegulaEmma NavarroPlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-09-05.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs; WTA match records · as of 2026-09-06.
The briefing
Storylines
- The first all-American women's singles quarter-final at the US Open since 2015, when Serena Williams beat Venus Williams. 2017 is the year that looks like it should break the streak and does not — four American women reached this round and none of them drew each other until the semi-finals.
- With Tiafoe playing Michelsen on the men's side, this round guarantees at least one American woman and one American man in the semi-finals. Fifteen Americans reached the third round, the best US showing at Flushing Meadows since 2002.
- Pegula is the two-time reigning champion of the Credit One Charleston Open, the tournament Emma Navarro's father owns — and Navarro withdrew from it this April, in the middle of the two months she spent away from the tour.
- Navarro's 2026 nearly disappeared: seven losses in nine matches after the Australian Open, a first-round exit at a WTA 125 in Austin, a ranking down to 39th, withdrawals from Miami and Charleston, and a thyroid problem she has spoken about only in outline. She came back in May, won Strasbourg, and beat Iga Swiatek at Bad Homburg in June.
- Sorana Cirstea's defeat by Pegula was the last Grand Slam match of a twenty-season career. She leaves ranked 17th, a career high set at 36 — the oldest player in WTA history to break into the top twenty for the first time.
- Pegula's route to the world No. 1 ranking is still open and very narrow: she has to win the title, and Elena Rybakina has to lose before the semi-finals. Rybakina plays her fourth round on Monday.
Head to head
Four meetings, all to Pegula: the 2024 Miami round of 16, 7-6(1) 6-3; the 2025 Bad Homburg quarter-final on grass, 6-4 1-6 6-3; the 2025 Beijing quarter-final, 6-7(2) 6-2 6-1; and the Cincinnati round of 32 three weeks ago, 7-5 6-2. Navarro has taken a set in two of them and has never beaten her, on any surface.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs; WTA match records · as of 2026-09-06.
Watch: Quarter-final coverage runs across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC, with ESPN Deportes in Spanish — and every court streams in the ESPN app. By this round the tennis has narrowed to the two show courts, so a broadcast window is very likely. (ESPN press-room release and listings, as of 2026-08-27)
Court & schedule: Not yet assigned. The US Open posts each day's order of play the evening before, and this match has not reached the board yet. (Official US Open order-of-play release cadence, as of 2026-09-07)
Weather: Labor Day, when the last four fourth rounds are played, is sunny and 80°F with nothing in it at all, and tonight is mostly clear at 64°F. The quarter-final days are as good: sunny and 80°F Tuesday, mostly sunny and 82°F Wednesday, with only a 6% shower chance late Wednesday night. Thursday is where the week turns — the first semi-final day now carries a 40% chance of showers and thunderstorms, up from 29% overnight, and it holds at 40% into Thursday night. Ashe and Armstrong close their roofs and play on; everything else waits. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-09-07)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.
At this Stage
The quarter-finals are the last eight, played across Tuesday and Wednesday. Everyone still here has won four matches on these courts, which is enough that seedings have stopped explaining anything and the form of the fortnight explains most of it. Four of the eight are gone within two days; the other four play for a place in the final.
