Follow us on Google Discover Jessica Pegula has admitted that even she has matches where she cannot keep a cool head.
Pegula lost to Coco Gauff in the Wuhan Open final in her most recent match, and she only has one more tournament left this year at the WTA Finals.
In her time away from the match court, the American has been speaking on her podcast, with Pegula even commenting on the idea of a ‘Six Queens Slam’.
When speaking on the latest episode of her podcast, Pegula has detailed the match where she had the biggest meltdown of her career.
Photo by Francois Nel/Getty ImagesJessica Pegula calls her biggest meltdown in a match where she smashed her racket
Pegula is known as one of the calmer players on tour, but not every match has been that way for the 2024 US Open finalist.
When speaking about this on The Player’s Box Podcast, Pegula recalled a match she played against Elise Mertens at the Dubai Tennis Championships in 2021.
Pegula led this match by a set and 5-2, before losing the next 11 consecutive games and smashing her racket.
“Against Elise Mertens in Dubai in Covid, I was up a set and 5-2 and I had match point and I think the screen went out on one of them and we had a let, or something weird happened,” said Pegula. “I was playing so well and I had never beaten her. I was serve and volleying, I was playing out of my mind.
“I finally won a really tough first set and put myself in position to win the second. I had a couple of match points. There was a let on one of them, where the banner went out or the lights came on and they called a let.
“I obviously ended up losing the match but when we went into the third there was no chance for me. There was nobody in the stands. I was with David Witt at the time and I was just talking to him like ‘I can’t believe this happened, I can’t believe I’m here right now, this is ridiculous. The stupid lights going off’ and we were well into the third. There was no chance mentally that I was coming back from that.
“That was pretty bad, actually. But it made it worse because there was nobody in the stands and we were playing Centre Court in Dubai. After that I did destroy a racket. The Dubai hotel is connected to the site and there is a little pathway by the pond and I really, really wanted to chuck my racket into the pond so badly. So freaking badly!
“I kind of wish I did it for the story now that we are fast forwarding. I think I threw it in the trash can next to the pond. But I smashed a racket, I literally walked off court, walked straight to my room and smashed it on the way. I was like screw this.”
When did Jessica Pegula beat Elise Mertens for the first time?
That was only the second time Pegula had ever played Mertens, and they have faced each other three times since then.
World number 20 Mertens leads the head-to-head against Pegula 4-1, and won their most recent meeting which took place at the Italian Open earlier this year.
The only time Pegula beat Mertens came at the Australian Open in January, where she beat the Belgian in straight sets.
This is one of many unexpected head-to-head scorelines in tennis and the WTA Tour, with Jelena Ostapenko’s dominant record against Iga Swiatek one of the more standout ones.
Pegula will not be able to improve this record until next year, as Mertens has not qualified for the WTA Finals in singles.