Jessica Pegula was able to get the better of her compatriot Coco Gauff in her first match at this year’s WTA Finals.
Pegula was beaten by Gauff in the Wuhan Open final, before playing her former doubles partner once again in Riyadh.
Despite facing the defending champion in Riyadh, Pegula was able to enact revenge over Gauff and beat her, 6-3 6(4)-7 6-2.
There was a lot of focus on how Gauff served against Pegula, but the latter was full of praise for one area of her compatriot’s game.
Jessica Pegula explains what she thought she did well against Coco Gauff
After beating Gauff, Pegula spoke to Arab News about the match and what she thought she did well.
In her response, Pegula was particularly impressed with her serving and spoke about how she was pleased with how she did not overplay too much against Gauff, which she suggested the world number three can force you to do sometimes.
“I thought tactically I was able to do what I wanted to do,” said Pegula. “It’s always a fine line with Coco, I mean she moves so well and you have to be aggressive, but also [you] can’t overplay at the same time and that’s what she makes you do so well.
“So I thought I was able to do that well and I thought I served really well, I think I was able to serve pretty consistent, even though I got broken in the second I still felt like I served really well the rest of the second set into the third, so that’s something I’ve been working on so it was nice to see that pay off.”
While Pegula has admitted that she finds playing Gauff a challenge, she actually leads the head-to-head against the two-time Grand Slam champion 5-3 after her latest victory.
Jessica Pegula says what the big difference is already to the WTA Finals last year
Pegula is a former finalist at the WTA Finals, but she did not have a successful campaign at the year-end tournament in 2024.
After losing her first two matches at the 2024 tournament, Pegula withdrew from the WTA Finals due to injury and she has spoken about the relief of already doing better than last year.
“It feels awesome, already a lot better than the way my Finals here last year went, so I think that’s a little bit of relief and you can kind of, you know when it didn’t end well last year I was a little injured and coming in this year I had a little bit of a different perspective,” explained Pegula.
“I think I came off a really good Asian swing this year as well, so I wanted to kind of use that momentum and kind of come in and compete and play some good tennis and use the things that I learned since the US Open as well, so I thought I did a good job.”
Pegula will now look to continue her resurgent WTA Finals record, when she plays her second round-robin match against world number one Aryna Sabalenka on Tuesday, November 4.
Despite losing the head-to-head 8-3, Pegula beat Sabalenka at the Wuhan Open in their most recent meeting.
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