"I've been able to embrace the grind" - Pegula on always improving

| by Sebastian Dahlman

Jessica Pegula is currently world number seven and the American tries to improve every day despite minor setbacks or injuries.

She plays at the 2022 Citi Open in Washington at the moment and she had no problems with compatriot Hailey Baptiste in the first round, dropping only 4 games. At the event, Jessica Pegula spoke about challenges in her career and always improving, when she said:

“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," said Pegula.

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“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."

“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," Pegula said.

“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."

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"I think that starts to add up after a long period of time. Me being able to keep that consistency just gives me confidence. It kind of just goes all together. Like I said, it’s like building blocks."

“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," concluded Pegula.

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