By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Saturday September 7, 2024
New York—For a long time, Jessica Pegula had to wonder if she could hang with the best players in the game. Sure, she was a six-time major quarterfinalist, with three wins over World No.1-ranked players, and a peak ranking of No.3 in the world. But after falling short so many times at the majors, she didn’t have that extra sense of faith in her game.
Despite her 7-5, 7-5 loss to Aryna Sabalenka in Saturday’s US Open final, that’s changed – in a big way.
“If I can’t take confidence from this, there’s got to be something wrong,” Pegula told reporters hours after the final, in her post-match press conference.
“I think I’ve taken confidence from winning a 250, from winning a 1000, from being able to win another 1000. Multiple ones now. Then to be able to be a Grand Slam finalist, I think that was kind of the last thing for me, right, was I made a lot of quarterfinals but can I make a semi, can I be a contender to actually win a Grand Slam.”
Pegula feels that she lost to a better player on Saturday in three-time champion Sabalenka, but she had multiple looks in each set, and competed exceptionally well with the best hard court player in women’s tennis.
“I’ve lost again to a really good player. I lost to girls that pretty much won the tournament every time. I know my level was right there,” Pegula said. “And I think maybe I handled the moment a little bit better this year, like I said before, with just having maybe a different perspective of I had a rough start to the year and I didn’t really expect to be doing this well in the hard court swing, and I was able to kind of flip that script.”
Pegula said that she gained perspective from her rough first half or the season, where she did some soul-searching with her new coaching team, and came back stronger to win 15 of 17 matches since the start of her title run in Toronto.
“I think when I came into here, it was almost less pressure kind of in a way, because I was just happy I was in another quarterfinal,” she said. “My slam record this year was not great. So I think maybe that perspective maybe helped me through that moment, and then I was able to obviously have a great match in the semi, come from behind there, and put myself in a chance to win a Grand Slam.”
When it comes to the nuts and bolts of her game, Pegula says she is still the same player. She has just been able to add some wrinkles, like better movement and serving, to make a difference.
“My movement and my serve has gotten a little bit better,” the 30-year-old said. “So I think there are certain parts that maybe are a little bit more consistent than they used to be. I’m sure there’s other days where maybe I’ve served better. But I think as far as a baseline, it’s not as much up and down throughout the weeks and through matches. I would say the same for my movement.
“So I think those things have improved a little bit. So I don’t know if I would say I’m playing better. The ball, am I seeing it like a watermelon every single day? Not quite, but I think with those other things, maybe that’s why it may seem like I’m playing my best tennis. But I really think it’s just more working on a couple of little things that maybe weren’t my strengths that have been a little bit better consistently.”
