The 30-year-old indeed found a way to adapt, just like she’s done throughout her career—from her early years plagued by injury, to her six-match Grand Slam quarterfinal losing streak:
Q. You talked about dreaming of this as a kid. Were there moments where along the way you thought, it’s just not going to happen for me?
JESSICA PEGULA: I don’t know if I thought it’s not going to happen, but there’s definitely moments where either, I didn’t want to play tennis, or I didn’t really know if I wanted to do it anymore. I mean, you definitely hit those types of low moments.
I have definitely had several of those, but I think in the end I always would snap back and be, like, ‘Okay, what am I talking about?’ (rolls eyes)
I would always kind of flip the script a little bit, and I have always been good at doing that. I think that’s why I’ve always been able to come back from different challenges even better than before.
Honestly, I’ve always felt like—not that it was never going to happen, I almost think the opposite. I always felt like, ‘You know what, you’ll figure it out eventually.’ That’s always something I’ve always told myself, I’ll figure it out, like, one of these times (smiling).
I think that’s just my quiet confidence in myself that I feel like I always have.
