Jessica Pegula and Emma Navarro got up after early-season stumbles to win their first titles of 2025

Fans of U.S. women’s tennis have had a lot to be happy, and surprised, about so far in 2025. In January, Madison Keys won her first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open, after 15 years on tour. In February, 53rd-ranked Amanda Anisimova won her first WTA 1000 title, in Doha. And in Abu Dhabi, 20-year-old Ashlyn Krueger made her first 500 final.

But what about America’s best and brightest? They had also been a surprise, but not in a good way. Before this week, Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula and Emma Navarro—three of the Top 8—hadn’t won a title between them, and only Pegula had made a final. Were they going to come to Indian Wells and Miami with no mojo at all?

Maybe it was the return to North America. Maybe it was the urgency of knowing that the Sunshine Double, and the home fans who pack those events, was around the corner. Maybe it was the fact that they were both the top seeds, and neither faced any Top 10 competition this week. But Pegula and Navarro both righted their wayward early-year ships with titles on Sunday. The former won in Austin, the latter in Merida.

“Use your experience, use your variety,” Pegula’s co-coach, Mark Knowles, told her when they talked after the first set of 7-5, 6-2 win over 25-year-old McCartney Kessler in the Austin final. If there was an area where experience might have helped on this day, it was in dealing with the wind. The gusts roared from one end of the court to the other, and made the ball difficult to control, especially for two players who use as little margin or topspin as Pegula and Kessler.

The result was not an oil painting—between them, the two hit 19 winners and made 63 errors. But Pegula kept her shots a little more under control than Kessler, and found a few more creative ways to win points. She wrong-footed her younger opponent with her backhand on important occasions, and was smart around the net.

Kessler is a player on the rise, and an excellent competitor, and we’ll see more of her this season. Pegula, meanwhile, has a tendency to get down on herself, and it looked for a few games in the early going that her shoulders were about to slump. But this time she dug herself out of that funk right away, and played with a vocal determination. Was it the chance to win her seventh title? Or the need to beat a lower-ranked American? Pegula says she has done a lot of work this season, and must have felt like it was finally time to have something to show for it.

“It’s the first title of our, like, being together,” she said to Knowles afterward.

Pegula’s title in Austin was a 250, while Navarro’s in Merida was a 500. But you wouldn’t know it from Navarro’s path to the title. She played four matches and didn’t drop a set. She didn’t face anyone ranked higher than 45th. And her opponent in the final, 133rd-ranked Emiliana Arango, had come out of qualifying and played three straight three-setters.

Navarro beat the exhausted Colombian 6-0, 6-0 for her second career title, and gave her victory speech wearing the traditional Mexican sombrero. It was just the fifth double-bagel WTA final of the 21st century.

These won’t go down as the most impressive or hard-fought title runs of 2025, or of these two players’ careers. But will they lead to bigger and tougher victories down the road? The simple act of winning breeds confidence and positivity, no matter how it happens.

The cast of U.S. women contenders has grown over the past two months. With the biggest American events of the spring just over the horizon, the country can add two more back to that list.