After Coco Gauff stated that she would no longer play doubles, her long-time doubles partner Jessica Pegula confirmed that they split as a doubles pairing and wouldn't be playing together anytime soon.
The last time the two Americans played together was at the 2024 Paris Olympics recently. The duo attempted to win a medal, but they failed to do that, despite being the top-seeded team in the draw.
They have hinted at splitting in the past, and it was mostly initiated by Gauff, who was open about not wanting to play too much doubles in the future. Pegula always maintained that she would want to continue to play doubles alongside singles.
She was even in action this week together with Giuliana Olmos at the 2024 Canadian Open in Toronto, who she paired up with just by coincidence, while Gauff was not playing, so the Olympics was the final event, and fans saw them play doubles together, at least for now.
"Yeah, it was fun. Actually, I think the girl we played today, Desirae Krawczyk, actually set us up. She wasn't sure if she was going to play with Caroline here, and so she asked me if I wanted to play, and then she ended up playing with Caroline."
"Then she was like, Oh, Giu-Giu is looking, and then Giu-Giu texted me. So it's pretty, it's pretty casual, to be honest. She just shot me a text and I was like, Sure, let's play. But, yeah, I thought we actually played really well, and we were talking about how sometimes it takes some time to get used to a partner, but I felt like that we clicked pretty fast."
"We beat some really good teams, and obviously lost a tough one today to another very good team, but definitely could have gone our way with a few points here and there. She has a partner that she usually plays with who just couldn't come this week, so she will be back with her."
There is always a chance that Gauff will return to the doubles in the future, which she confirmed after her loss to Diana Shnaider. During her press conference, Gauff spoke at length about her decision not to play doubles in the future.
However, Pegula was also asked about what would happen with her and doubles in the future because they'd been an established duo for a very long time.
Pegula explained that her younger colleague simply wasn't interested in playing doubles anymore, and she also hinted at possibly not playing many more doubles tournaments in 2024.
"For me, I'm not sure. I know Coco doesn't really, isn't interested in playing, or at least I'm not, we're not thinking of playing, so I probably will take it easy on the doubles the rest of the year, so, yeah, we'll see."
"I think I'll just play maybe whenever I kind of want to (laughing), and maybe just focus on singles the rest of the year."
Despite their split, the pairing is seemingly still on great terms, but it was just a decision from Gauff to prioritize her singles career. Pegula may continue playing doubles in the future, but for her, it will also be something not as frequent as before.
It will not be her main focus, as she wants to focus on her singles career as well. Neither were predominantly doubles players either way, but they did well in doubles.
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