Pegula cruised into the fourth round with a 6-0 6-2 win over
Marta Kostyuk after similarly impressive straight-sets victories
against Aliaksandra Sasnovich and Jaqueline Cristian earlier in
the week to stay on course to claim her maiden Grand Slam crown.
She also dismantled top-ranked Iga Swiatek -- the favourite at
the year's first Grand Slam -- and left the Pole in a flood of
tears during the season-opening United Cup mixed team tournament
which the Americans won.
"I definitely played very well against Iga," Pegula told
reporters. "I've also played a lot of great matches this week,
as well. I've backed up my level. I think I can beat anybody.
"But again, in the moment, under pressure, with nerves, on a
different stage, depending on the conditions that day or how
they're playing as well, that can always change and shift
throughout a match.
"But, yeah, I feel very confident that my game is at a very,
very high level right now."
A quarter-finalist in the last two years, Pegula said there were
still some aspects to her game that she needed to improve on
despite a convincing win to set up a meeting with former French
Open champion Barbora Krejcikova.
"I'm kind of a perfectionist," she explained. "Even today, I was
annoyed. I didn't think I served very well. I had that game to
go up 5-1. I was up 30-0. I missed a couple of first serves.
"I don't have a problem analysing my game. Usually I'm trying to
do the opposite because I can over-analyse and be kind of a
perfectionist in that way.
"As far as how I'm playing, I'm definitely playing a lot better
than I was last year here. I think I just got better in the
off-season as well. We worked on a couple things.
"Sometimes it's hard to really say that because it's such a
short off-season, it's like how much can you really improve. At
the same time, I did pretty well last year."
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Melbourne; Editing by Toby
Chopra)
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