“You lose, you’re still at the same place and you have to play again” – Pegula hopes to adapt better to round-robin format at WTA Finals this year

For the second year in a row, Jessica Pegula has qualified for the season-ending WTA Finals, the only event on the women’s tour which uses the round-robin format. Last year, the American lost all her three singles and doubles matches in the tournament and admitted she struggled to adapt to the format.

Speaking to the media on Saturday in Cancun, where the 2023 WTA Finals kick off on Sunday, the world’s top-ranked doubles and fifth-ranked singles player admitted she found the format hard to deal with because she was not used to being in the same city and tournament after a loss.

“It’s definitely a lot different. I talked about it before, like last year kind of messed me up,” the 29-year-old said. “Usually when you lose, you want to get out of there, fly to the next week, get away from the site and the courts because you’re upset that you lost, right? You’re like, I just want to get out of here. Last year was weird. You lose, you’re still at the same place and you have to play again. Even though you have another chance, it’s hard to brush away, a loss because every year the format we play is you lose, and you go to the next city or you go home. I think mentally it was a lot different. I didn’t expect to not struggle with it, but I didn’t expect to think it would be difficult. Last year I felt like it was actually very difficult to have to lose a match and then come back and play the next day or two days later.”

It’s great that you still have a chance, especially with the tough competition we have here.

Jessica Pegula

Back in the top eight in singles and doubles (with partner Coco Gauff) for the second year in a row, Pegula is drawn along with world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka (trails 4-1 in head-to-head), fourth seed Elena Rybakina (leads 2-1 in H2H) and eighth seed Maria Sakkari (trails 5-4 in H2H in the Bancalar Group in singles. The second time around, she hopes she will be better prepared mentally to deal with the format.

“Hopefully I can mentally prepare better this time. It’s great that you still have a chance, especially with the tough competition we have here. All of us are the girls that have been playing the best all year, so it makes it really hard. Some days just go better than others,” Pegula said. “It’s just a different format, but I think it makes it exciting to see the different matchups. I think girls playing differently against different players, some play better, some player worse. It will be nice to see that you can see those matchups more often before someone being eliminated.”

Pegula, who comes in having won the Korea Open title two weeks ago, opens her campaign in Cancun on Sunday and takes on former Wimbledon champion Rybakina in her first group match.

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