Jessica Pegula has spent this fortnight breaking new ground and busting myths.
At the age of 30, the New York born No 6 seed is into her first Grand Slam final, where she will face Aryna Sabalenka.
The daughter of billionaire Terry Pegula, owner of NFL franchise the Buffalo Bills and ice hockey team the Sabres, Jessica has also addressed some ‘crazy’ misconceptions about her lifestyle.
‘People think I have a butler, I get chauffeured around, I have a private limo, I fly private everywhere. I’m definitely not like that,’ she said, before repeating in disbelief: ‘A butler?!
‘It’s a little annoying, but honestly I just think it’s kind of funny.’
Jessica Pegula will head into the final match of the US Open to face Aryna Sabalenka
Sabalenka, from Belarus, holds six career titles and won the US open in 2019
If Jessica was born into wealth her parents certainly were not. Terry was laid off from his job working for Felmont Oil and, with $7,500 raised among friends and family, he started a natural gas drilling company that became worth billions.
Jessica’s mother Kim was abandoned on the streets of Seoul as a baby and adopted in the USA as part of a scheme to settle children displaced and orphaned during the Korean War.
‘I guess it was kind of the American dream,’ said Jessica on Netflix’s Break Point series.
But there is no denying a father worth $7.7billion helps in tennis, which is cheap to play at recreational level but extremely expensive for budding professionals.
For the first nine years of Pegula’s career she struggled outside the top 100 and it is difficult to imagine she could have sustained that without financial support.
But in tennis terms one cannot argue she has had an easy road after almost a decade of slugging it out on the lower tier circuit. Once she broke into the top 100 in January 2019, however, she rose steeply.
The majors have proved a tough nut to crack but after five quarter-finals and five defeats, Pegula has broken new ground here in her home state.
Pegula secured a spot in the title match after defeating Karolina Muchova in the semi final
Sabalenka ended Emma Navarro’s run – which had wins over Coco Gauff and Paula Badosa
Sabalenka defeated Elise Mertens and Zheng Qinwen on her way to the semi finals
Her semi-final against Karolina Muchova on Thursday night began as a rout but became a high-class match. The Czech blazed through the opening set, Pegula saying afterwards: ‘She made me look like a beginner. I was about to burst into tears. It was embarrassing.’
At 2-0 up in the second set Muchova had a point for what would surely have been a decisive double break. She forced Pegula wide deep and wide and was lurking on top of the net but the American clawed a forehand back with just enough side spin to give Muchova an uncomfortable volley, which she missed long. From there Pegula edged her way into the match and came through 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 to set up a meeting with Sabalenka.
Tennis has thrown up some oddball women’s finals recently – see this year’s Wimbledon – but this is clearly the ‘right’ final, between the two best hard-courters in the world. Pegula has won 13 of her last 14 matches, winning Toronto and losing in the final of Cincinnati to Sabalenka, who is herself on an 11-match unbeaten run.
Australian Open champion Sabalenka has played her usual heavy metal tennis here in New York; her average forehand speed has been higher than any of the men’s top three: Jannik Sinner, Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz.
The 26-year-old Belarusian has come close here before, making the semis in 2021 and 2022 and narrowly losing last year’s final to Coco Gauff.
Sabalenka puts that defeat down to her inability to cope with a partisan crowd and she will face the same hurdle here, although it may help that she faced another American in the semis, beating Emma Navarro 6-3, 7-5.
‘Last year it was a very tough experience, very tough lesson,’ she said. ‘Today in the match, I was, like, “No, no, no, Aryna, it’s not going to happen again”.’
