Jessica Pegula joined the critics of the heavy schedule on the ATP and WTA Tours, joining the World No. 1 player, Iga Swiatek.
Many tennis players have expressed their concerns about the packed schedule in recent months. Loudest of these voices has been the World No. 1 player on the WTA Tour, Swiatek.
The Polish player often brought up the topic, even warning the WTA that it will not end well, if they insist on maintaining this type of schedule. In recent years, it became a trend to extend ATP and WTA 1000 events to two-week instead of one-week tournaments, making the calendar even more congested.
Pegula recently got to experience what it feels like reaching the back-to-back finals at the WTA 1000 events, when she played in the final of the Canadian Open in Toronto and the Cincinnati Open final.
These two tournaments are still one-week events, which will become two-week tournaments in 2025, and after reaching both finals this year, the American player was naturally asked about the change that will come into force next year.
Pegula, like most of her colleagues on the ATP and WTA Tour, is not fan of two-week WTA 1000 tournaments.
"I’m not crazy about two-week tournament."
The 30-year-old could find also a positive about two-week tournaments. If rainy weather stops the play, like it did in Cincinnati, then players have more time to complete their matches, without the schedule becoming too congested.
However, that's something that happens very rarely, so most of the time, the positive of the one-week events outweight the negatives.
"Of course, when the weather is bad and the playing time is compressed it’s terrible and you wish you had more time. Other times you’re like, ‘Why is it two weeks? It can go either way, I don’t know which is better."
As a daughter of a billionaire and owner of multiple sports clubs, Terry Pegula, the World No. 6 player understands the business side of the sports.
She knows that with more money coming into the sport and it growing every years, the tournaments also become longer, but still, having two back-to-back two-week tournaments, just more than a week before the US Open, which is another two-week event and a major, is far from ideal according to the American player.
"I think we’ll continue to see tournaments grow and offer more money. But two long tournaments in a row and then the US Open is not ideal."
This year, however, she got to experience these one-week tournaments for the last time, and it was a great run for her, which she will try to carry into the US Open, where she will be among the top favorites.
Obviously, she didn't choose to compete in the week prior to the last major of the season, using this time to rest and arrive fresh in New York for the US Open, which she will enter as the sixth seed, meaning she can play against her higher-ranked rivals already in the quarter-finals of the event.