Jessica Pegula is currently in Melbourne, preparing for the upcoming Australian Open, which commences on January 18. She participated in the Brisbane International, where she lost to Marta Kostyuk in the semifinals, and was also scheduled to play in the Adelaide International but withdrew to focus on the first Grand Slam of the year.
The World No. 6 raised some injury concerns in Brisbane when she was spotted training with a heavily taped left thigh. However, all the problems were put to bed when she managed to dispatch her opponents with relative ease before the semifinals.
Pegula recently appeared on the “Changeover” podcast, where she discussed various factors in tennis and how active players on tour cope with the challenges. Pegula expressed her feelings about the new era of American players in women’s tennis, which she referred to as the post-Serena Williams era.
“I think there’s just been so many of us. And I think after Serena and Venus, I mean, Venus is still playing, but like Serena stopped. I think she carried that for like so long that when the kind of wave of all of us came in, it was kind of like, oh, we can carry this all together. This is kind of stressful,” said Pegula.
“I don’t know how Serena ever did it, but that’s why she’s, you know, the goat. But it’s kind of easier when you can share that pressure a little bit. And I think we just all like push each other really well. And we just knew that there was room for all of us,” Pegula added.
“And it made it less pressure on ourselves when you know that there’s someone else there. It’s not like you’re at the US Open, and like, you’re the top American, like you have to win the US Open. It’s like, well, there’s like 10 of them,” Pegula concluded.
Jessica Pegula Makes Her Feelings Clear About the Taxing Tennis Schedule
“There’s definitely not a long enough offseason. I think the two-week events have exacerbated it a little bit because, previously, slams used to be two weeks long, and that was a lot. You know, a lot is going on. Mentally, it’s really tough. Some people don’t understand tennis. It’s not that I love it and am thankful for it, but it doesn’t exactly contribute to a healthy life,” said Pegula.
