MUBADALA DC OPEN

July 27, 2026

Jessica Pegula

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Jess, first opening week here. What are you expecting out of this tournament?

JESSICA PEGULA: Yeah, super excited to be back here in D.C. I think I always love starting my summer swing here, and I have a lot of great memories here. I think it's a great start to the hard court swing, so excited to be here and see what happens.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. I guess for top players after Wimbledon sometimes it can feel like a little mini-offseason or a break, but I guess based on what I saw on your podcast, you have been all over the country with weddings. Does it feel like a break? How much preparation did you get in before this tournament?

JESSICA PEGULA: Yeah, to be fair, I didn't have a lot of prep. I was traveling a lot and had a lot of other work stuff to do that wasn't just on the court, a lot of off-court stuff, and a lot of commitments that I had set up.

So I wasn't originally supposed to actually play here. I ended up adding it to my schedule just because I felt like, you know, it's so close to me. It's not that far away. It's an easy tournament to play, especially before we go to Toronto and Cincy.

Yeah, I went to a couple of weddings, had a lot of fun, and then did a lot of work in between. So it was a busy week. Not going to lie, my prep probably hasn't been ideal, but yeah, it is what it is. Excited to play.

Q. You mentioned adding this to your summer swing here before the big 1000 tournaments kick off. What's so important about adding this to your repertoire and adding this to the mix for your routine as you get ready for the bigger tournaments?

JESSICA PEGULA: Yeah, I think I've always played this tournament, so I'm very familiar. I'm familiar with the setup, and I have friends that also live here. So for me, it's always been just a really fun week I think to start the summer swing, get in a little bit of heat.

Even though I'm in Florida, and it's actually much hotter in Florida, but get into a little bit of heat this week, get used to the balls. I think the fans here are really, really fun to play in front of as well.

I don't know. I always feel like this tournament kind of sets my swing off on a good note. I think it's just, like, a good energy here being in the nation's capital, and being an American, it's always a lot of fun for me to play here.

Yeah, I kind of I guess couldn't not play it this year. I thought I wasn't going to, but decided to add it back in.

Q. Last year you competed in the inaugural US Open revamped mixed doubles competition alongside Jack Draper. They released the entry list, and I saw today that you are planning on playing with him again. Can you talk about your experience playing that and looking forward to playing that again this year? Also, I don't know if you have seen the entry list, but are there any other teams that you hope to maybe play against? There's Aryna and Novak, Rybakina and Fritz again, Eala/FAA. I don't know if you've seen the entry list, but...

JESSICA PEGULA: We were just talking about it. Yeah, I thought the event honestly surprised me. I think it was a really great turnout last year.

I think we have such a sport that's so interesting where you can see men and women competing on the same stage, on the same playing field, and I don't think you can really do that in many other sports. So I think it's a fun way that they've been able to capitalize on that.

And I think the fans, as we saw last year, were very drawn to seeing men's and women's top players playing together. They also, I think, like seeing the doubles player playing against someone that's more singles-based.

I think you just saw a lot of different storylines that the fans really love to embrace, and I think the US Open has grown so much where people just want to see tennis.

I mean, I was lucky enough to be able to play at least, I think, three matches. I got to play on Ashe. We got to play in front of Ashe on night with a full crowd, which was so much fun.

I got to play with Jack, which was someone that I never really had spoken to much before, but ended up becoming good friends with him now. We have a good relationship. I thought we'd try to run it back. I know he's had a couple of injuries, so we'll see how that goes.

But yeah, I think especially for him, he had never played a night session on Ashe, so to kind of get out there and experience that maybe before that happens to him in singles is probably great for him. It was just a fun dynamic.

It was really exciting, and I think you got to see a lot more personality from the players, as well, and just seeing those personalities and how they mixed and matched with the certain teams. Every team sounds really tough. You never really know.

I think sometimes mixed can be a little bit of luck, especially with the guys serving and the girls serving. You never know. It can just be one break, and the set is kind of over. So it's always pretty intense from the first point, and you have to be pretty focused and locked in from the get-go.

But, yeah, Aryna and Novak sound like a pretty tough team. All of them sound pretty tough. Yeah, I don't know. I wouldn't really want to play anybody.

I mean, I thought even last year we had a really tough draw. Yeah, we'll see.

Q. First, I'm working on a story about Daria Kasatkina's wedding, which is one of the ones you didn't go to, but I'm curious, as someone who has been to a lot of tennis weddings, maybe kind of had a tennis wedding of your own and I assume have been to non-tennis weddings also in your life, is there anything that makes a tennis wedding distinctive that you can tell, oh, I'm at a tennis player wedding?

JESSICA PEGULA: There's usually always a tennis nod somewhere. There's always something tennis-related. Like even at mine we tied in something tennis-related because that's how people know you, right?

I think at Paige and Tommy's they had the Honey Deuce drink as a cocktail, so I thought that was cute. It was a little nod to tennis.

Same thing, when I went to Asia's wedding, there was something. I forget, but always something a little tennis-related. Not overly, because I don't think anyone wants to really talk about tennis that much, but at the same time, it's, like, yeah, you know, don't forget we play tennis.

I would say that's always something I notice, yeah.

Q. Second, WTA is starting this genetic testing. It's happening onsite here. I'm just curious what your thoughts are on that program rolling out and if you have already done yours?

JESSICA PEGULA: Yeah, no, I haven't done mine yet. I believe it's just a cheek swab, I think. But, yeah, I think the WTA is just looking to implement a new policy and kind of update something that was maybe a little bit outdated.

I guess they did a lot of research regarding where other sports and leagues and I think also the Olympics and places like that, where they were heading with it. They just decided to kind of expedite that with the policy that was, I think, really hadn't been changed at all. I think a lot of things have changed since then.

So yeah, I mean, I think that's just something that they felt like they needed to do, so I'll just be available for testing whenever.

Q. Has there been talk about player reaction to this new requirement?

JESSICA PEGULA: I have not heard anything from any players, but also, this is kind of the first week I've been back playing. So I think we'll see over the next couple of weeks, but so far nobody has ever mentioned anything to me.

Q. I see you're wearing a WHOOP, and I wanted to talk to you about sort of your metric tracking. Are you someone that gets into the nitty-gritty of that? We are also seeing Oura Ring, for example, is coming into the US Open as a sponsor. Are you someone who goes into the nitty-gritty of that? As an athlete, obviously I'm sure those details are important to you or your team, or do you leave it mostly to your team and you're just, like, I'll wear it?

JESSICA PEGULA: No, I mean, I like wearing it. I think it kind of gives me a baseline sometimes of knowing where my body is at. I think sometimes tennis players, we're used to practicing, training, working out all the time, and sometimes you just don't realize, hey, maybe I'm a little rundown today, maybe I'm starting to get a little sick, maybe the jet lag really hit me a lot harder, and it's really not a good time to train.

I think we're so programmed to always kind of push through and train all the time, and I think it just kind of gives you a bit of a reset, at least for me, to kind of say, hey, okay, today I probably don't need to go extra hard, and that's okay. The benefit of maybe taking a rest day or going lighter is actually higher than me trying to push through and thinking that, like, more is always better. So for me, it's been helpful in that way.

I think, too, just holding me accountable on my sleep is something. I'm kind of a night owl. I tend to kind of stay up and linger and stay up longer. So it kind of is a game to me where I can make sure that I'm getting X amount of hours and stuff like that.

My coaches and trainer -- I mean, it's great now that we can wear it into all of our matches. I think it just gives a good baseline of where your body is at during matches. So we don't use it all the time, but especially with my trainer, I'll definitely send -- if I have a really tough match, I'll send him just to see where my heart rate was at, where my level was at for this amount of hours. Then he'll just kind of adjust. Maybe the next day, okay, you know, we don't really need to do that much, you got a lot of work in yesterday.

It's a helpful tool I think as long as you just don't overthink it, because I do think sometimes you can wake up with a bad score, and you have to play a match that day, and some players I know say that they don't like wearing it because they're, like, I can't see that number. I don't want to see that. I thought I was feeling okay, but my score is terrible.

You just have to be okay with that part of it.

Q. You mentioned earlier your podcast. I'm curious, now that you're a little over 50 episodes in, how would you describe the evolution from episode 1 until now, and are there any lessons that you have learned from the beginning to now as you become more immersed in the podcast world?

JESSICA PEGULA: Oh, my gosh, I'm sure we're much better now than we were at episode 1 where we, like, didn't know what to do. I think our editor is also probably thankful that we're better at our jobs now than we used to be. So it's been a fun learning process.

I think some of us -- I think we've kind of fallen into line into things we like to talk about. Jenny was very adamant and funny doing fan questions and any type of that type of stuff. She loved being the host of that segment.

I have kind of leaned into doing more tennis headlines, and then Des and Madi like doing the games. You don't really know that at first. You're kind of just doing random stuff.

Then you kind of figure out what you're good at and what you like doing and where you feel like you can be the most helpful. So I think that's something that's been a learning process for us over, yeah, the last 50 episodes or so. I mean, we're pretty much coming up soon on our one-year anniversary.

Q. I watched a bit of your practice this morning. Given that you've said you took some time off, just wondering how you felt on the court today, your body, and then the court? Also, a frequent question from our side of the world, which is new to tennis, how tennis pros manage jet lag, like going from one continent to another? How does that work?

JESSICA PEGULA: Oh, gosh, that's hard. One, I felt pretty good today actually. The last few days I've felt much better on the court. You never know sometimes after time off how you're going to feel coming back. Sometimes you're, like, this is going to be rough, this is going to take some time. Then sometimes you are, like, oh, I actually feel pretty good.

I think being in Florida, it was very hot and humid, but having to practice in that condition and then come here where it's actually slightly cooler, I feel much better here than I did there. So it was kind of nice. I think training in the heat kind of always helps you feel better about your conditioning.

Then yeah, the jet lag, it's a tricky situation. I think you try your best to get, I think, on track as quickly as possible. For me, fighting through those first two days is really important. Whereas maybe some people, you know, if you are traveling, maybe it's for a vacation, and you don't really have to do that and you don't care because you're, like, oh, I'm going to take a nap, and I'm going to eat whatever I want and sleep whenever I want.

For us, I think we're just so used to not having a choice of, like, oh, we need to practice the next day. Like, you have to go to practice. So it forces us to have to stay up the whole day, make sure we go to bed on time, et cetera, et cetera, which I think gets us on track a bit faster.

I think also, though, going back to the WHOOP stuff, not pushing through too much if you're not feeling great. So sometimes I think what I've changed is maybe practicing a little bit, but not overdoing it, because sometimes your body is functioning in a totally different part of the world, and you have to give it a little time to get used to it.

Everyone is different. I think when you travel, start traveling a lot, you realize how many days you need. I think now I know, too, which areas of the world I'm travelling to, my jet lag is the worst.

For me, going to the Middle East, I'm terrible. It's the worst jet lag ever. I cannot function for, like, three or four days. So I know going there, that's in my head. Okay, I need a couple of days. Some other countries it's a bit easier.

Q. Quick follow-up to the WHOOP question. Was your recovery green today?

JESSICA PEGULA: It was not.

Q. If your recovery is green, do you play better?

JESSICA PEGULA: I have played good when my recovery is bad, for sure. Like, I don't know. That's what I mean. It doesn't always equate. I'm sure if you ask most tennis players, they're definitely not functioning at a Grand Slam for two weeks always in the green. Like, I would imagine there's probably one or two days, for whatever reason, maybe you're in the yellow. Hopefully not in the red, but I've definitely played good when I'm in the red, so it's mental.