Jessica Pegula and Austin Krajicek won't compete as the first-seeded team in the mixed doubles at the 2023 Wimbledon.
Grand Slam tournaments are always special as they are the only events in the calendar when players can compete in three separate tournaments. And that's exactly what Jessica Pegula did at the 2023 Wimbledon, signing up for the singles, doubles, and mixed doubles tournament.
In singles, the American started with three victories, making it to the fourth round of the tournament. In doubles, she also started well, winning her first match alongside Coco Gauff on a quest to become the world no. 1 in doubles in the WTA Rankings.
The mixed doubles draw prepared a very interesting match on the first two lines. The top-seeded Jessica Pegula and Austin Krajicek were set to take on one of the couples in the draw, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Paula Badosa.
However, Tsitsidosa withdrew from the tournament due to Badosa's back issues, so the first-seeded American duo was supposed to take on Nicolas Mahut from France and Anna Danilina from Kazakhstan.
Yet, after her doubles match with Gauff, Pegula announced her withdrawal from the mixed doubles competition, completely changing the match on the first two lines of the mixed doubles draw at the 2023 Wimbledon.
Pegula's reasoning was the back injury, which may possibly be a problem for her also in singles matches. Now it will be Mahut with Danilina taking on another alternate team Andres Molteni from Argentina and Yana Sizikova from Russia.
While the highest-ranked American on the WTA Tour certainly enjoys playing doubles and mixed doubles events, it's not a secret that every player prioritizes singles, and so does Pegula, who will want to prevent injuring herself even more, possibly even withdrawing from doubles with Gauff, despite having a shot at becoming the new World No. 1.