Jessica Pegula has bowed out of the French Open in dramatic fashion, losing to world number 361 Lois Boisson.
Pegula loved the French Open crowd despite taking on a French player in Boisson, who beat her 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.
The WTA number three was the third seed at the French Open, but fell in the fourth round of the clay-court Grand Slam in Paris.
Tim Henman loved Boisson’s ‘special’ win over Pegula, with the home favourite now taking on Mirra Andreeva in the quarter-finals.
Pegula meanwhile leaves Paris after a disappointing and shock defeat, having withdrawn from Roland Garros in 2024.
Jessica Pegula shares her honest thoughts on two-week WTA 1000 events
The American spoke to the media after the upset, where she was tasked with discussing the two-week WTA 1000 events in the calendar.
“I am not a fan of the two-week tournaments,” said Pegula. “It makes everything really long. Grand Slams are already really long and so now it’s two weeks Madrid, two weeks Rome and then two weeks here.
“It’s really, really tough. That is the way that it is now. And, of course, it is always better when you are winning a lot of matches because the days and the weeks go by much faster.
“If you are losing somewhat early and in the first week and then you are seeded and don’t play until really late in the next week it can be tough.
“It gets tough being on site and travelling in between tournaments and you are just kind of groundhog day, trying to train.
“I feel like it kind of depends on how you do. It has been a little tough I guess this year for me because Madrid and Rome did not go particularly amazing.
“I won some matches but the weeks in between get kind of long, which is why I played Strasbourg. But it’s a tough kind of stretch for the Americans for sure.”
What has Novak Djokovic said about two-week ATP Masters 1000 events?
A total of 10 WTA 1000 events are in the calendar, with Montreal and Cincinnati having been most recently expanded to 12-day tournaments.
They follow Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid, Rome and Beijing in that regard, with Doha, Dubai and Wuhan lasting one week.
Henman thinks players want eight-day Masters 1000s in an ideal world, but it remains to be seen if any changes will be made any time soon.
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Pegula’s thoughts undoubtedly echo those of men’s star Novak Djokovic, who made similar comments on the ATP Masters 1000 schedule while speaking at the 2023 Italian Open.
Asked if he thinks it is an advantage for the older players to get time to recover, he replied: “It depends really from which angle you’re looking at it.
I mean, I’m personally overall not a fan of that because I feel like we already have four Grand Slams a year that take two plus one week eventually if you go all the way with training.
“You spend 10 to 12 weeks only in Grand Slams. Now we’re going to have eight out of nine 1000 events be the same for next year: pretty much a two-week event.
“As I said, it depends from which perspective you’re looking at it. If you’re a fan, of course an extra day of seeing the top players is great because you have more tennis in your city. I understand from that point of view.
“You mentioned that it might be advantage because of the recovery. Yes, it could be the case in that given tournament.
“But then if you play all the big events on clay, for example, you played Indian Wells and Miami, that is also kind of a month duration for two events, then you play Monte-Carlo, Barcelona, then back to back Rome and Madrid, if you play really well and go all the way, you’re maybe not the freshest for Roland Garros.”
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