Also in action are Brandon Nakashima, Reilly Opelka (pending his back injury from this weekend), Alex Michelsen, Amanda Anisimova, Danielle Collins, and Diana Shnaider.
Paul and Pegula will try to get their mid-season mojo back—and not worry about their football teams too much
Pegula and Paul, natives of Buffalo and the Philadelphia area, respectively, have a lot in common. They’ve gone deep in Australia, they have major-title dreams that have yet to be fulfilled, and they can both be distracted by the fates of their respective football teams in January. Paul is a diehard Eagles fan, while Pegula’s family owns the Bills. Both teams have championship aspirations this year. If Paul and Pegula were asked to choose between winning in Melbourne, or their team winning the Super Bowl, I’m not entirely sure how they would answer.
The two also find themselves in similar situations coming into the new year. Both had strong mid-season runs in 2024—Paul won Queen’s and made the Wimbledon quarterfinals; Pegula won in Canada and made the US Open final. But both dropped a bit from those peaks in the fall. Can their 2024 surges be repeated, or sustained for longer, in 2025? We’ll start to find out in Australia.
Pegula in particular is in a tough section of her draw, with Badosa, Collins, Kostyuk, Sakkari and Noskova.
