"I've been able to embrace the grind" - Pegula on always improving
WTA
Jessica Pegula might be one of the best tennis players in the world, but she also wants to improve every day.
The American player is currently ranked seventh on the WTA Tour, and she entered the 2022 Citi Open in Washington as the top seed. In the first round of the tournament, she bested fellow compatriot Hailey Baptiste 6-2, 6-2.
Following her win, Pegula spoke to the reporters in Washington, detailing her journey as a tennis player. Like every athlete, she had to go through plenty of challenges to get where she's at the moment.
"I’ve gone through a lot of challenges. Obviously, I think being healthy is huge, especially in today’s game. I think the game is improving so quickly every week, I feel like everyone’s always getting better and the level’s getting higher."
"Really, like, taking care of my body very seriously because I’ve been through a lot of bad injuries and I know what it’s like. You can see when girls get hurt, they’re out for three to six months or something, it’s really difficult to come back."
Pegula was one of the players who didn't shine as teenagers. In fact, her breakthrough took quite some time, and she's one of the players considered to be "late boomers."
Because of that, she had to learn the grind of the WTA Tour relatively late in her tennis career. She might have a slight disadvantage compared to younger players, but she was able to embrace that.
"It’s not that easy. The level just keeps kind of growing and you’re playing catch-up more or less. To me, I don’t want to do that. Like I said, I’m not 17. I’m not old – I’m 28 – so I don’t want to really want to waste any time doing that. I already did enough of that."
"Health has definitely been, like, the main priority I’d say, just coming from all my injuries. That in itself gives me a lot of confidence, it gives me the ability to go out and perform and train at my best every single day."
"Throughout the year there’s been times where obviously mentally you’re really tired and stuff like that. I don’t know, I think I’ve just been able to, I don’t know, embrace the grind of every single day and really enjoy it. Yeah, I think that’s just helped a lot the last three years.There’s been a lot of ups and downs, but it’s been good more or less."
