{"id":84266,"date":"2023-04-26T12:06:14","date_gmt":"2023-04-26T10:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/?p=84266"},"modified":"2023-04-26T12:06:14","modified_gmt":"2023-04-26T10:06:14","slug":"pegula-madrid-final-was-a-big-step-for-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/pegula-madrid-final-was-a-big-step-for-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Pegula: Madrid final was a big step for me"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first memory that springs to Jessica Pegula\u2019s mind from her breakthrough run to the Mutua Madrid Open final last year was a moment at the very start of her tournament.<\/span><\/p>\n

The American was facing Camila Giorgi in her opening round and found herself staring down a match point late in the third set. Pegula saved the match point, went on to break Giorgi to level the decider at 5-all, took the next two games and slipped through to the second round.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think that (match) kind of got me to the finals, to be honest, because I probably should have lost (to Giorgi) and it was a crazy match. That kind of turned the whole tournament around for me. So that definitely that match is a moment I remember very specifically,\u201d reflected Pegula on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

After her great escape against Giorgi, Pegula\u2019s path kept getting tougher and tougher, but she pulled off straight-sets wins over Kaia Kanepi, Bianca Andreescu (who remembers Pegula sitting on her bench and counting the 17 break point chances she had in the first set on her hands?<\/i>), Sara Sorribes Tormo and Jil Teichmann to earn a place in a WTA 1000 final for the first time in her career. In the championship match, Pegula fell to Tunisian Ons Jabeur in three sets.<\/span><\/p>\n

While she didn\u2019t walk away with the winner\u2019s trophy, Pegula took a lot from her runner-up showing in Madrid.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat was my first 1000 final, definitely was a big step for me, let alone being on clay, I think was kind of a little bit of a surprise, to myself and other people. But it gave me a lot of confidence I think, starting the whole clay swing going into the French Open, it really helped,\u201d said the world No.3.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely changed my perspective of what I could do at big events. I was always close but I think making that final was a big deal. And I had a really good match with Ons, who had a really great clay-court season that year, I think final in Rome as well. So definitely gave me a lot more confidence on the surface.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think that helps when you’re looking at the year, knowing that you could still do well on the clay is always helpful.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it just kind of knocks down a barrier in your brain a little bit about where your perspective is and where you can go when you’re playing these big events.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pegula has been one of the most consistent players on tour over the past couple of seasons and she has hit several new milestones along the way; like clinching a maiden WTA 1000 title in Guadalajara end of last year, and cracking the top five in the world rankings for the first time.<\/p>\n

She started 2023 by guiding USA to the United Cup title and reaching the Australian Open quarter-finals. She made the semis or better in four of her next five events.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old, who opens her Madrid campaign against Jasmine Paolini or Magdalena Frech, credits her better movement and open-minded approach for her progress on clay (she made the Roland Garros quarter-finals last year).<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I was more open to what I need to do differently (on clay); which wasn’t that much. I guess when you’re looking you probably don’t notice but I think just little mental things, where to serve, where to return what to do when the conditions get heavy, adding more drop shots, which I always did drop shot but maybe doing it more,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I feel like just really minor adjustments and just kind of having the right mindset coming in that, okay, it’s clay but you know, if you come in with a negative attitude, I feel like some players do that don’t like the surface, then you\u2019re kind of losing before you even get there. So I think it was just keeping a really good open mindset.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first memory that springs to Jessica Pegula\u2019s mind from her breakthrough run to the Mutua Madrid Open final last year was a moment at the very start of her tournament. The American was facing Camila Giorgi in her opening round and found herself staring down a match point late in the third set. Pegula […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":84267,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[837,875,843],"tags":[835,844,831],"class_list":["post-84266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-noticias-tenis-en","category-mutua-news-en","category-noticias-tenis-femenino-en","tag-2023-es-en","tag-jessica-pegula-en","tag-mutua-madrid-open-en-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84266"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84270,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84266\/revisions\/84270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}