As No.3 in the women’s championship, Jessica Pegula entered the stadium with high hopes of winning. The tournament was held at Wimbledon, where the player entered all optimistic and prepared for the match. However, her hopes went in vain when she lost the tournament in the first round on Tuesday. The first round winner for the tournament was Elisabetta Cocciaretto, who was ranked as Women’s No. 116 in the tournament.
Jessica Pegula in the first round
Looks like Pegula is not having a good day after losing the lead after 4 double faults in the first round. The major setback for Jessica Pegula was the serves, which she could get only 52 percent correct. However, once she bounced back from the lows, she played well and bagged 65% of these points. Similarly, she faced issues in her second serve, which increased the gap between the scores of Cocciaretto and hers. Due to these mistakes, the match finished quickly, and Pegula lost the match in just 58 minutes. The score for the first round of the tournament was 6-2 and 6-3.
Jessica Pegula and Elisabetta Cocciaretto have been in a match before in 2023, where Pegula defeated Cocciaretto. The second match looks like a revenge by Cocciaretto’s side in their second face-off. The score for this match was 6-4 and 6-0, which marked the victory of Jessica Pegula.
Pegula has never won a Grand Slam before, and maybe it will pass on to future matches as she lost it again. After 2020, it was the first time Pegula lost a Grand Slam, which is awful. Wimbledon is the toughest event for Pegula, as she couldn’t score more than 62% winning percentage this time.
Jessica Pegula’s reaction to her loss
Jessica Pegula was disappointed with her game in the very first round of the tournament. The loss hurt more when the Italian player was placed about 113 ranks below her rank, indicating an underutilization of her potential. She was heavily strapped on her right knee, but said that it didn’t hurt at all as compared to her errors in the game. Moreover, she referred to her performance as the worst one in the whole year.
She also showed acceptance of the result, saying that she had won quite a lot of matches in the recent two weeks. To her, it seems like today’s match didn’t align well with those already in the queue. Just a week before, she defeated Iga Swiatek at Bad Homburg, which set the bar for the Wimbledon high for Jessica. However, maybe the title didn’t align well for her this season at Wimbledon. Jessica’s goal was to enter the list of the world’s top 10 champions, but she was dragged down the list instead. Jessica has only surpassed the quarter-final stage of a major once at last year’s US Open tournament. However, after that, she didn’t lose any slams for a long time. But this time, she is hurt and disappointed that she was never observed before this.
Conclusion
Pegula has lost the first round, which means Cocciaretta will move forward to the second round of the tournament. Moreover, the loss has deeply affected the sentiments of Pegula. It seems like she has reached stage 1, where she used to face issues in serves. The feeling to circle and return to stage 1 after crossing 6 is a very disappointing and frustrating situation for a player.
