'I Had It Locked Down': Pegula On Reuniting With Gauff For Doubles At Wimbledon

Friday, 05 July 2024 at 01:00

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byNurein Ahmed

Jessica Pegula recently clarified why she is partnering Coco Gauff in the Wimbledon doubles tournament on the back of her compatriot's success at Roland Garros with Katerina Siniakova.

Pegula and Gauff have been doubles partners since February 2022. Together, they have five WTA doubles titles and were runners-up at the French Open two years ago.

However, the 30-year-old has missed a considerable chunk of the first half of the season because of two separate injuries. Pegula withdrew from this year's Middle East swing because of a neck injury.

She also missed out on competing on red clay, including Roland Garros, ending her streak of 19 successive Grand Slam main draw appearances. At that time, Gauff chose three different doubles partners.

In Madrid, the 20-year-old US Open champion played alongside Taylor Townsend, reaching the quarterfinal stage. At the Italian Open, she teamed up with Erin Routliffe, and they reached the championship match, where they lost to the Italian duo of Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini.

The third time was the charm for Gauff, who secured her first Grand Slam doubles title at last month's Roland Garros while partnering the experienced Katerina Siniakova.

Pegula recovered from the undisclosed injury that kept her out of the European clay swing and returned to the grass. She won the Berlin Open, her first title of the year, and is currently competing at Wimbledon.

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The fifth seed is reuniting with Gauff at this year's grass swing. They played their first tournament together since Miami in the German capital (they lost in the first round) and will now play at Wimbledon.

Speaking after her first-round win over Ashlyn Krueger in singles, Pegula revealed on Tennis Channel that she "locked down" on the decision to team up with Gauff even before the World No. 2's success at Roland Garros with Siniakova.

"I mean [Katerina] Siniakova, she's an amazing doubles player too. I didn't even know they were playing until they were like in the quarters and I was like, 'Oh, I didn't even realise,' because I wasn't following that much at home with the time change so it's funny. But luckily I think I asked her [Coco Gauff] like before that. I already like had it locked down."

They will look to build some momentum ahead of the Paris Olympics, which could be their final tournament as a doubles team. Pegula is looking forward to that experience, although they will not play a warm-up tournament on clay before then.

"Yeah, yeah. She did yeah. So that's nice. But hopefully we can maybe get some momentum here [Wimbledon]. I know it's not clay but at least for the Olympics. It's nice, obviously her getting a doubles Slam is really cool and then hopefully you know we seem to play well the doubles. So for the Olympics, I think it'll be fun."