Fresh Legs Working In Pegula’s Favor as US Open Looms

The American is hoping to make a breakthrough in Flushing Meadows this year.
There can be advantages to missing time on the tennis tour, and Jessica Pegula, who missed her faire share in 2024 due to injury, is hoping to benefit during a time of year when many of her peers are flat-out worn down from the grind.

Pegula, fresh off winning the title in Toronto last week, told reporters that she feels she is fresher than usual this time of year, due to the fact that injuries kept her off the court earlier in the season.

“I missed a lot of the beginning of the year, so I feel mentally pretty good where some other people might feel more run down,” she said, according to David Kane of Tennis.com. “I’m mentally prepared to grind out the end of the year more than I would be the last few years.”

Pegula missed time in January and early February with a neck injury, then skipped the European clay season due to a rib injury, among other things.

Ironically, it bodes well for the 30-year-old six-time WTA Tour titlist. With many of the tour’s top players struggling – see Coco Gauff and Elena Rybakina, who both were bounced out of Cincinnati on Thursday – Pegula is in good position to make a push at the US Open.

Surely she’d like to break through and reach a semifinal at a major for the first time. She has lost each of her six previous Grand Slam quarterfinals, but maybe those fresh legs could be the difference for her in Flushing Meadows in a few weeks.

In Canada Pegula became the first woman to repeat as champion since Martina Hingis in 2000, defeating Amanda Anisimova in the final.

🏆 BACK-TO-BACK 🏆@JPegula defends her title at the #NBO24, becoming the first woman in the 21st century to win two straight titles in Canada 🤠@nationalbank pic.twitter.com/SDXIc2A44J

— National Bank Open (@NBOtoronto) August 12, 2024

Pegula will face crafty Czech Karolina Muchova in second-round action on Friday in a match that was cancelled due to rain on Thursday night in Cincinnati.

Pegula didn’t have the best time at the Olympics a few weeks ago, losing in the second round in singles and doubles, but she’s quickly adjusted back to her favorite surface and hopes to finish the season strong.

She said it was good for her to go straight from Paris to Toronto and fling herself into the hard court season with much time to dwell on the difficulties of switching surfaces.

“To be able to come back the next week and just focus on competing in a way almost helped me,” she said, according to Tennis.com. “I didn’t have time to think about how I was really feeling… It was kind of like, ‘Ok, let’s kind of see where we are. Let’s try to get the movement back, the feeling back on hard court with the balls,’ and stuff like that. I almost wonder in a way if it kind of helped.”