The first major statement of the new tennis season came swiftly and with devastating force. At the United Cup in Sydney, the new mixed-gender team competition, Poland’s undisputed world No 1, Iga Swiatek, stepped on to the court against the US’s Jessica Pegula with the intention of extending her dominance for another year.
Instead she received a sharp dose of her own medicine. For just over an hour, Pegula picked Swiatek apart, suffocating her with early, crisp ball-striking, outmuscling her from inside the baseline and laying total waste to her serve. Pegula dusted Swiatek aside with the loss of only four games and briskly moved on.
Only a few years ago, a scene such as this in Pegula’s career, dismantling the dominant player as a top player herself, seemed extremely unlikely. Pegula, now 28 years old, had spent most of her career a world away from the big stage, grinding in the lower levels of the ITF challenger circuit and unsure she would ever step up.
“I see girls I played challengers with and now I feel so weird being a top five player in the world,” says Pegula, laughing. “It feels weird. I’m always kind of wondering if they’re like: ‘How the hell did that happen?’ And I’m thinking to myself, ‘Gosh, I really made that leap. I really did it.’”
It was not until her 11th year as a professional, just weeks before her 25th birthday in February 2019, that Pegula broke into the top 100. Seven of those years had been spent in perhaps the toughest spot of all, stuck between 110 and 200 in the rankings. Her fleeting moments of good form failed to make up for numerous injuries and inconsistency. As she struggled to break through, she became fixated on reaching the top 100.
“I just remember [top 100] being this huge hurdle and then when I did it, I was kind of just like ‘OK, that’s it? That’s all it took?’ It was hard, but I think it’s one of those things where you have this amazing goal and then once you reach it, you realise: ‘Why was I stressing out so much about that?’”
Pegula is neither the most physically strong nor the most varied player, but she is a smooth, clean and precise shotmaker off both wings and her ball-striking is delivered with immaculate timing. Those qualities were always present in her game, but her head was often in the way.
“I’ve been in slam qualifying, and I’d be kind of freaking out. You don’t really realise it in the moment because it seems like it’s such a big deal. You’re freaking out,” she says. “And then now that I look back and I’m playing all these even bigger matches, I’m like, ‘Wow, I’m way more calm now than I was when I was playing qualies and [lesser] events.’ It’s one of those weird things where it’s something that you haven’t achieved and then once you do it I think you just free up and you get this confidence, knowing that you belong there.”
As the world No 3, Pegula is now the highest ranked American tennis player, male or female, but her achievements are not as widely celebrated as others. Pegula says that she does not mind being under the radar and is also aware of why she is less appreciated – she does not possess as much flair as some and the dynamic youngsters around her are more appealing than her, a resilient veteran. Most of all, it is her more privileged upbringing. She is the daughter of Terry Pegula, a billionaire businessman, and Kim Pegula, who together are owners of the Buffalo Bills NFL team and Buffalo Sabres NHL team.
“I think people definitely root more for the underdog, and so I’ve never really felt like people are totally rooting for my story. I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s just like, that’s what I feel. And I don’t care – it doesn’t affect me and that’s fine. I understand and I think I’ve gotten better at maybe trying to bridge the gap of more of, OK, it might not be an underdog story, but it’s kind of a cool story. A fun story,” says Pegula.
Pegula notes that her ambition and passion in tennis long preceded her understanding of her family’s fortunes. While she may have been more hesitant in the past, she says she now tries to embrace her background in a positive manner. “I want to connect with the sports teams. I want to connect with my family in that way. I don’t want to totally shy away from it. I’m not gonna sit there and flaunt everything, but I think it’s just fun. And I think that’s helped me as well be more comfortable when everyone’s always like, ‘Oh, she’s the richest tennis player in the world or she’s worth the most or blah, blah, blah, or she doesn’t need to do this or that.’”
Despite how some may view her, Pegula is one of the more laidback figures on the tour and she is well liked in the locker room. Being born with more resources is a helpful advantage in an expensive and exclusive sport such as tennis, but professional tennis is gruelling and brutal for all. The perseverance and resilience it has taken for her to flourish later in her career has commanded her significant respect among her fellow players.
“I always knew I was putting in the hard work and treating people well, being respectful and having that respect among my peers. I’ve always felt like I’ve had that. So to me, that outside factor never really affected me because I knew what I was, I was doing it the right way and I was doing it,” Pegula says.
This has been a particularly notable and difficult time to be associated with the Buffalo Bills. Just under two weeks ago, Pegula was on the team bench at the United Cup while keeping one eye on the livestream of the Bills on her phone when Damar Hamlin collapsed. Pegula struggled throughout her subsequent mixed doubles match, and then she watched from afar as events unfolded over the following days. During the United Cup, Pegula said she received messages from people in the organisation thanking her for providing some positive news in an otherwise horrible week.
“Obviously things started turning around and he’s doing so much better now. It was just a crazy experience. I don’t even know [whether] there’s a big following of the NFL in Australia, but even people around the tournament asked me like: ‘Is he OK?’, so it was crazy. The effect it had on the whole world and it just kind of shows you that it’s a lot bigger than just sports, but at the same time that kind of brought everyone together as well, which was really special.”
For most of last year, Pegula’s season was defined by her remarkable consistency rather than any spectacular result. She wasn’t satisfied. After losing her third grand slam quarter-final of the year at the US Open, Pegula walked into her press conference with a can of beer and a sigh. “I go back and forth,” she told the media. “Oh, I should be positive. At the same time I’m like, fuck, three quarter-finals. Sorry, but it just sucks. It sucks.”
That moment was a pivotal step in her development. Pegula’s understated nature has often meant that she has shied away from speaking her ambitions aloud, but projecting her frustration was a relief. “I was starting to realise like, OK, I’m having all these amazing results but I want to win these tournaments. I’m tired of just being the consistent person which is great, but at the same time, I would love to win a slam and then maybe win less matches, you know? I don’t care,” she says, laughing.
A month later Pegula rolled through four consecutive grand slam champions en route to winning her first big title in Guadalajara, a WTA 1000 event. She has now started the year with a win over the world No 1 having led USA to the United Cup title. She is playing with freedom and confidence. Pegula will begin the Australian Open as one of the top contenders, and her firm opening statement means that few will want to see her across the net.
