NEW YORK — At a rainy US Open where it’s a struggle to even finish the first round, Jessica Pegula was happy to quickly be into the third.
The No. 3 seed needed only 56 minutes on Wednesday to defeat Sofia Kenin 6-3, 6-1. Kenin, the 2020 Australian Open champion, beat Venus Williams in her first match.
“To be out of there in under an hour, it doesn’t always happen,” Pegula said. “So I think I’m just going to take that one and run, I guess, until the next round.”
Some players won’t get there for a while. With rain coming down for a second day in New York, play was suspended again for a time on outside courts, allowing only play under the roofs in Arthur Ashe Stadium and Louis Armstrong Stadium to continue uninterrupted.
It was Pegula’s 31st hard-court match win this season, breaking a tie with Elena Rybakina for the most by any player on the women’s tour. Overall, Pegula has won 47 matches in 2026, tied with Alexander Zverev for the most by any player on either tour.
Later Tuesday, Emma Navarro rallied past Caty McNally 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 in an all-American second round. It was Navarro’s first win at the US Open when dropping the first set (had been 0-3).
Pegula and Navarro played second-round matches, while some players were still playing their first. When the US Open switched to a Sunday start last year, it spread out the first round over the first three days, so Wednesday would have arrived with everyone playing in the second round had the weather cooperated.
It hadn’t, and some players were not only still playing their first match, but they had to hope the weather cleared enough later so they wouldn’t have to resume it Thursday.
That poses a mental challenge, with Paula Badosa saying she didn’t even know how to prepare for the resumption of her match against Daria Kasatkina, which was halted Tuesday with her one game from winning to set up a second-round match against No. 4 Coco Gauff.
“I didn’t know if I was going to play just two points or six, or I don’t know how much, how many I play or one more set,” the Spaniard said Wednesday after finishing off her 6-1, 6-4 victory.
“So I knew that if I was winning this match, I’m playing the next day. So, yeah, it was everything a bit different. I was very nervous that I even couldn’t eat, so a lot of different stuff I did today, but sometimes it is how it is, and I tried to play with the things I had there.”
No. 7 Karolina Muchova, the Wimbledon runner-up, beat Katie Boulter 6-1, 6-0 to reach the third round, while No. 11 Marta Kostyuk got past 2017 US Open champion Sloane Stephens 6-1, 7-5.
No. 31 seed Leylah Fernandez set up a matchup of past US Open runners-up against Pegula, with the winner to meet either No. 16 Sorana Cirstea or No. 19 Jasmine Paolini.
Defending champion Aryna Sabalenka was set to play on Ashe at night.
ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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