CINCINNATI — If Jessica Pegula needed further proof of her summer surge, her solid performance Friday at the Cincinnati Open was it. After her first match of the tournament was postponed until Friday due to rain, the 30-year-old American followed up with two matches in one day to advance to the quarterfinals in Cincinnati.

Cincinnati: Results | Draws | Match Order

Pegula began the day with a tough opening match against last year’s finalist Karolina Muchova. The world No. 6 came back from a set down to win 5-7, 6-4, 6-2. After a few hours’ break, she returned to the court and defeated Taylor Townsend 6-2, 6-3 to book her place in the last eight.

Pegula has now won her last seven games and put aside any concerns about a season that she considered subpar just a month ago.

“It’s kind of funny, I always say it looks like a bad year,” Pegula said before the tournament, “but I won a 500 and a 1000.”

“I think I know the level is obviously still there. I just have to stay healthy and try to do my best for the rest of the year. But yeah, it’s turned around a little bit.”

Pegula finished last season in high spirits, claiming her second WTA 1000 title in Montreal, winning Seoul and finishing second at the WTA Finals. A stalwart of the Hologic WTA Tour’s biggest tournaments, Pegula was finally feeling the aftereffects of her non-stop playing schedule over the past three seasons.

After a surprise coaching change in February, injuries sidelined Pegula from four WTA 1000 tournaments. After skipping the European clay court season, she returned to grass and won the Berlin Championship in a dramatic performance that saw her save a match point. In many ways, this title came as a surprise. Pegula was to really flourish on the hard courts.

“It was a little bit tough to go straight to grass and then play on clay for a week and then back to hard court,” Pegula said. “But I feel like this is going to be the first part of my season now where I actually have a set (schedule).”

“The rest of the year you play on hard courts, you can prepare and practice. So I think it definitely sped things up a bit and changed my year a little bit.”

With her victory in Toronto, Pegula became the first player since Martina Hingis 24 years ago to successfully defend the Canadian Open. In Cincinnati, she has the chance to pull off one of the rarest doubles victories in the sport. The last woman to win titles in Canada and Cincinnati in two consecutive tournaments was Evonne Goolagong over 50 years ago, in 1973.

The key for Pegula was exactly what made her successful: playing. Pegula went from the 2024 Olympics in Paris straight to Toronto and now to Cincinnati. The nonstop schedule seems to have unlocked her work ethic.

“Toronto was definitely a tough week mentally,” Pegula said. “I think it helped me in some ways to come back and just focus on competing because I didn’t have time to think about how I really felt.”

“It’s not like I had this extensive preparation and went into this week expecting to do well. It was more like, okay, let’s just see where we are. Let’s try to get the movement back. Let’s try to get the feeling back on hard courts with the balls and stuff like that.”

Pegula will face 2021 US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez in the quarterfinals on Saturday. Fernandez followed up her match-point-saving win over No. 4 Elena Rybakina in the second round, ousting red-hot Diana Shnaider 6-1, 6-4. With the win, the 21-year-old Canadian is into her second WTA 1000 quarterfinal of the year.