This week, when traveling to the site of the US Open in Flushing Meadows, Queens, from her hotel in Manhattan, world No. 6 Jessica Pegula chose a method of transport fairly unique to global sports stars. Instead of taking a car service or a shuttle, the five-time Grand Slam quarterfinalist opted to hop on public transit.
“My agent makes fun of me for not wanting to take a nice car,” Pegula said while sitting on the “W” subway train in an Instagram reel documenting her commute—which would later show her transferring from the “W” to the “7” at Queensboro Plaza with ease, like a real New Yorker. “We actually went to Flushing one time. It took like an hour-and-a-half in the car, and I wanted to, like, throw up. I was ready to jump out of the car and walk to the site.”
Another post followed her, as she took the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) back from the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center to Manhattan.
“LIRR is much easier, but I had a 20-minute walk to [my] hotel,” she wrote in the post. “And not one person recognized me hahaha.”
If anything, these exploits exhibit Pegula’s openness to traveling a different path—which, fittingly, is how she’s approached her career this past season.
In February, after taking an early loss in the second round at the Australian Open, the Buffalo, N.Y., native made the decision to part ways with her longtime coach David Witt. Pegula hired Witt in 2019 and went on to capture her first tour-level title in Washington, D.C., that July. He advised her as she rose from a player just inside the Top 100 to the world No. 3.
In 2022—the year Pegula reached the quarterfinals at three of the four Grand Slams, including the US Open—Witt was named the WTA Coach of the Year, and at the 2023 WTA Finals in November—one of their last tournaments together—Pegula dominated the field, notching straight-set defeats of 2023 Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka, 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina and 2023 US Open champion Coco Gauff en route to a runner-up finish at the event.
Witt told Tennis.com the parting came as “a total surprise.”
But Pegula just felt she needed to be open to alternatives. She didn’t want to be plagued by "What if I had…?" or “Why didn’t I…?” when she hung up her racket.
“David and I obviously had a lot of success, and what we were able to accomplish together was pretty amazing,” she said at Indian Wells in March. “But I think having started with him when I was maybe 25, and then being 30 this year, I think I’m just in a much different place—a different ranking, a different place personally and career-wise… I just felt like I needed to take some chances… I just didn’t want to look back and be like, ‘Maybe I should have tried someone else, or tried something different.’”
Pegula installed Mark Knowles—a former world No. 1 doubles player who went on to coach Mardy Fish and Jack Sock—and former University of Florida coach Mark Merklein as her new team beginning in February. But the collaboration never really got the chance to leave the station; in the spring, the athlete picked up a rib injury and was forced to miss the entirety of the European clay season, including the French Open.
When she returned to the tour, however, it didn’t take long for her to shake off the rust. At a tournament in Berlin, she displayed some trademark Jessica Pegula grit, saving five match points in the final against Anna Kalinskaya to lift her first-ever grass-court championship trophy.
And during the latter half of the summer, she put on a clinic, embarking on a nine-match win streak as she defended her Masters 1000 title in Toronto and then reached the final of the Masters 1000 in Cincinnati, defeating top players Karolina Muchova, Leylah Fernandez and Paula Badosa along the way.
Now she’s into the Round of 16 at the US Open for the third straight year, this time without dropping a single set. It’s safe to say the tinkering she committed at the beginning of the year is paying dividends at the end.
“I feel like we've found a good groove where I know how to communicate with [Knowles and Merklein], they know how to communicate with me,” Pegula said after her second-round win over Sofia Kenin. “I love hearing different voices and having different personalities to work with. I think it makes it more exciting and a little less mundane.”
The road, of course, doesn’t get any easier. Pegula next faces red-hot Diana Shnaider for a spot in the quarterfinals. Although Pegula got the better of the former North Carolina State standout in Toronto, the big-hitting 20-year-old has been ruthless so far this fortnight, dropping just 13 total games en route to her best-ever showing at a major.
Should Pegula pass that test, she could next meet world No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who has dismissed the American at the quarterfinal stage from a Grand Slam twice—at the French Open and the US Open in 2022.
Part of the reason Pegula likely wanted to “take some chances” with her coaching situation earlier in the year was precisely for this moment: To advance past the quarterfinals of a major for the first time and score big wins on the biggest stage in the sport.
“I would love to be able to say that I accomplished [winning a major],” she said at the start of the fortnight. “That's always my goal going into a Grand Slam. And if it doesn't happen, I mean, you just try to put yourself in the best possible space to make it happen, but you kind of know that you did your best and you tried your best. That sounds cliché, but it's really the only way you can keep moving on and keep competing.”
Sometimes, when you’ve put in the hard work and made tough career decisions, that’s all you can ask for. That and a pleasant commute.
