Rod Laver Arena was bedecked in stars and stripes as Jessica Pegula and Amanda Anisimova faced off in an all-American quarterfinal battle, both seeking to advance to a maiden Australian Open semifinal.
Pegula had already taken down two fellow Americans in her quest to reach the last 16, and after Wednesday's win she added another, winning in straight sets, 6-2 7-6(1).
But for Anisimova, who was making her seventh appearance at the Happy Slam, she can leave Melbourne Park with her head held high.
“I think making the quarters is a good result,” said Anisimova, who is now the second youngest player to make quarterfinals at all four Grand Slams this decade after Iga Swiatek.
But despite this milestone, Anisimova was not afraid to let her feelings show during the Pegula match.
The crowd saw the full spectrum of her emotions; tears, hope and frustration ebbed and flowed as the match slipped from her grasp.
Her career-best Australian Open run follows on from a stellar 2025 season where the world No.4 was a finalist at two Grand Slams.
At Wimbledon, she defeated world No.1 Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinals before a heartbreaking loss to Swiatek in the final. Her Wimbledon loss, the first double bagel result in more than 100 years, left Anisimova delivering a tearful speech that won the hearts of her fans.
Later at the US Open, she clashed again with Sabalenka where she succumbed to the world No.1 after a tight second-set tiebreaker.
Wednesday's battle against Pegula was not the outcome Anisimova wanted, but her efforts to turn the match around in the second set were commendable.
The pair traded game for game, unable to break each other’s serve until the eighth game when Anisimova broke Pegula’s serve to pull ahead. Her trademark two-handed backhand helped lay down a two-game buffer, but a composed Pegula recovered swiftly, levelling the scorecard until the two arrived at a seven-point tiebreak.
“I feel like sometimes I was able to find myself in the match and find my way back into it somehow,” Anisimova said.
“The fact that [Pegula] just plays such consistent tennis, it's not easy, but then again, you know, you have to make at least two or three balls in the court.”
The feeling was mutual. For Pegula, she went into this match knowing that – despite her 3-0 record against Anisimova – her opponent would pose a challenge.
“She [hits] such a big ball … it’s always tricky especially against her,” Pegula said.
Wiping away tears of frustration between serves, Anisimova played with her heart on her sleeve, breathing through her disappointment.
The 24-year-old has been candid in the past about her free-flowing emotions on court.
“I'm not someone or a player who likes to keep my emotions in,” she said after her AO 2026 second-round match.
“I feel like that actually ends up backfiring on me and I get a little bit stiff if it goes on for a long time and I'm not able to express myself.
“Yeah, sometimes it's probably not the greatest moments of mine,” she said with a smile.
“But I'm able to always regroup.”
A measure of a great player is one who can take their loss, acknowledge their disappointment, and then formulate a plan to return better than before. And that’s exactly what Anisimova plans to do.
“I just need to figure out what goes wrong in those moments and how can I kind of clear myself and get myself back in the game and just play with bigger targets.
“Yeah, I just need to learn from this match and figure out what I did wrong.”
“I think that after a day like today, I'm going to completely lose all sense of rationality for 48 hours, and that's just kind of what goes into working so hard for something and then you have matches and days like this.
“That's what makes tennis very tough, but also, you know, we have a great life, and I'm grateful for what I do.”