It has been a wonderful year for the American women’s tennis players, especially in the Slams, but could it have been a little better? Well, the 2025 season started with an incredible AO triumph by Madison Keys. No one had literally picked her as a favorite in that tournament, but she stunned everyone by beating the world number one, Aryna Sabalenka, in a three-set thriller. It was followed by Coco Gauff’s French Open triumph, and guess what? Even here, Sabalenka was on the opposite side of the net in the final! Other than these two, Jessica Pegula has also been in great form this year, winning three titles already this season. So, expectations were quite high surrounding these three at Wimbledon.
But the result? We witnessed multiple setbacks in that tournament. Although Amanda Anisimova, an American, made it to the finals, Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula, and even Madison Keys failed to impress in this tournament. Gauff went out to Dayana Yastremska in the first round in straight sets. Jessica Pegula also made an exit after losing her first round match to Italy’s Elisabetta Cocciaretto by 2-6,3-6, while Madison Keys was knocked out by Laura Siegemund in the third round. For Pegula, it was her first opening round loss at a major tournament since the 2020 French Open. “It’s really a bummer to lose. I haven’t lost the first round of a slam in a very long time, so that sucks,” she said after the match.
Now, weeks after that disappointing exit, Jessica Pegula is entering her favorite part of the year, i.e., the North American hard court swing. Last year, she reached the final of the US Open. How does she feel going into the 2025 Citi Open? While speaking on this, she spoke a little bit about he major upsets at Wimbledon. Pegula said, “Wimbledon obviously was not what the result that I was looking for, of course. I think it was a weird Wimbledon, though. I think a lot of players don’t have the results that they wanted. But at the same time, I mean, I won Bad Homburg, you know, 3 days before that. Like, I was playing good tennis.”
Jessica Pegula, currently ranked fourth in the world, has a win-loss record of 35-13 this season. Is she confident entering her favorite part of the season? In that same press conference, Pegula further added, “I’m just trying to focus on the fact that I was playing well, you know, even at the French, doing well in Bad Homburg, even playing well in Berlin, losing a crazy match. So, I felt like I’ve been playing some really good tennis and now I’m just, you know, back on probably my favorite surface and I feel like my best surface.“
Image Credits: Jessica Pegula/Instagram
As things stand, Jessica Pegula is currently the only player to beat Iga Swiatek (2025 Wimbledon champion) this year, and this itself is a massive achievement. Despite her early exit from Wimbledon, her 6-4,7-5 win over the Pole in the final of the Bad Homburg Open was really her standout performance on grass this season. What does she have to say about that match, and what was the reaction of the tennis world after seeing Pegula make an early exit from Wimbledon?
Jessica Pegula highlights the big change that she has seen in Iga Swiatek’s match just before Wimbledon
Jessica Pegula’s Wimbledon exit was like a bolt from the blue for all the American tennis fans. Even American tennis legend, Andy Roddick, stated, “The Pegula one is the most shocking result of the first two days for me because her game is made for grass.” He said that since Pegula is a ball striker, moves around pretty well with an incredible shot tolerance, her defeat is a bit shocking to him. Describing those successive upsets at Wimbledon, he said it was just “chaos,” but it was fun.
According to him, this is what happens when players actually play tournaments outside of the “mono surface.” While analyzing Jessica Pegula’s defeat to Elisabetta Cocciaretto in the first round, another former pro, Andre Petkovic, said that she spoke to someone close to Jessica Pegula, and they claimed that Cocciaretto had played the best match of her career. However, according to Rennae Stubbs, Pegula didn’t have a good attitude in the match. Jessica Pegula hit an uncharacteristic 24 unforced errors in that match compared to just five winners.
Her performance was nowhere close to what she came up with in the previous tournament at Bad Homburg. Interestingly, during her recent press conference at the Citi Open, Pegula also shared a very interesting observation surrounding Iga Swiatek’s gameplay. What did she say, though? While sharing her thoughts on the Bad Homburg final, Pegula said, “I thought she was serving a lot bigger. I didn’t really watch her much during Wimbledon. I’m not sure if that was better. But she was serving really big in Bad Homburg and playing good tennis and beating good grass court players. I thought our final was a really high level. It was super close.”
Jessica Pegula will start her 2025 Citi Open campaign against Canada’s Leylah Fernandez. She has a 2-0 lead in the H2H record against the Canadian. Can Pegula overcome Wimbledon setback with an impressive run at this tournament?
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