{"id":67584,"date":"2025-08-13T23:03:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T23:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/67584\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T23:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T23:03:09","slug":"pegula-sets-retirement-date-after-shock-cincinnati-open-exit-tennis-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/67584\/","title":{"rendered":"Pegula sets retirement date after shock Cincinnati Open exit – Tennis – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

American tennis star Jessica Pegula<\/a> has admitted that she won’t be playing at 35, meaning she may already be in the twilight of her career.<\/p>\n

Pegula, 31, has won three singles titles this year and reached a Grand Slam final for the first time in 2024<\/a>. The American has earned over $18 million in prize money and has enjoyed the 2025 season after admitting to feeling burnt out last year, but has accepted that she doesn’t have long left in tennis.<\/p>\n

Despite three titles this year, Pegula suffered a disappointing first-round exit at Wimbledon and has struggled in Montreal and Cincinnati<\/a> ahead of the U.S. Open<\/a>. As the 2025 season draws to a close, Pegula has admitted that she analyzes her future “year-to-year” but has no plans to continue playing past 35.<\/p>\n

In an interview on the ‘Tennis Insider Club<\/a>‘ podcast, Pegula revealed that her career could be over by the end of 2028. “So I think this year I feel really good,” Pegula said. “I honestly feel like it\u2019s a year-to-year thing.<\/p>\n

“I don\u2019t think you can get ahead of yourself. It\u2019s like, ‘Do I feel healthy? Do I feel good this year? Do I feel I can still compete at a high level?’ Then yeah, I will keep playing.<\/p>\n

“I’ll definitely not be playing at 35. Definitely not. I think that’s where I for sure have to stop. I think it would be cool to try and make the Olympics cause it’s in LA in a couple years. … I’m counting it, technically, like two years because then you qualify, so I’ll probably have an idea by then if I’m in or not.”<\/p>\n

With the Olympics coming to the United States in 2028, Pegula could be one of the major contenders alongside Coco Gauff to earn a gold medal on American soil. Pegula told Gauff about the uncertainty surrounding her long-term future, but was told to keep playing until the Los Angeles Games.<\/p>\n

“I think I was talking to Coco, and she was like, ‘You can play until LA.'” Pegula added. “She was mad at me because I was like maybe a couple more years, and she was like, ‘If you\u2019re going to play two more years, you might as well play another year for the LA Olympics.’<\/p>\n

DON’T MISS…<\/p>\n

“She was like, ‘You can\u2019t retire before then!’ This was like a year before, and I was like four years, that\u2019s a long time. I will be 34. What are you talking about?<\/p>\n

“She was like, ‘You can just stay top 20, with the way you hit the ball, you will be fine. I am not letting you retire before the LA Olympics, especially if I\u2019m qualified!’<\/p>\n

“I was like, ‘You won\u2019t even be 25 yet, you still can\u2019t rent a car! And I think if you want to have kids, you can\u2019t wait that long.’ I definitely don\u2019t want to have kids and then come back.<\/p>\n

“I think when I have a kid, I\u2019m done. I admire the women that do that, but that is just not [for me].”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"American tennis star Jessica Pegula has admitted that she won’t be playing at 35, meaning she may already…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,26217,4305,35058,4963,1705,82,30677,593,1706],"class_list":{"0":"post-67584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cincinnati-open","11":"tag-coco-gauff","12":"tag-jessica-pegula","13":"tag-olympics","14":"tag-retirement","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-sports-section","17":"tag-tennis","18":"tag-tennis-section"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}