{"id":105928,"date":"2025-09-01T01:22:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T01:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/105928\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T01:22:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T01:22:09","slug":"jessica-pegula-shares-the-message-she-sent-to-jack-draper-right-after-he-pulled-out-of-the-us-open-with-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/105928\/","title":{"rendered":"Jessica Pegula shares the message she sent to Jack Draper right after he pulled out of the US Open with injury"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jessica Pegula and Jack Draper were two of the standout singles players competing in the US Open\u2019s star-studded mixed doubles format this year.<\/p>\n

A first-of-its-kind event, it saw some of the world\u2019s biggest names combine in the most unlikely of partnerships, pitted against some established doubles teams to see who would come out on top.<\/p>\n

Naturally, Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori came out on top, but Jack Draper<\/a> and Jessica Pegula<\/a> still caught the eye as a no-nonsense pairing who made it to the semi-finals.<\/p>\n

Frustratingly, this ended up being the bulk of the Brit\u2019s experience in New York, forced to retire after winning his first-round match in the singles due to injury.<\/p>\n

Pegula, his partner, has now commented on Draper\u2019s sad retirement from the US Open<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jessica Pegula on Jack Draper retiring from the US Open with injury<\/p>\n

Speaking at her press conference after progressing into the quarter-finals, she began by admitting: \u201cI kind of knew his arm wasn\u2019t great in the doubles. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe kind of alluded like maybe it was it wasn\u2019t 100% yet. But then obviously he played his first round, and then I saw him and was talking to him and then like an hour later he pulled out and so I just sent him a text and was like, \u201cHey, I\u2019m so sorry. Hope you\u2019re doing okay. Hope you get healthy.\u201d And you know, all that stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really tough. I mean, especially for the guys. It seems like he gets injured a lot. That is unfortunate when you can\u2019t stay healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pegula then explained how she dealt with that same issue, transforming her lifestyle to boost her fitness: \u201cSo, that\u2019s something I feel like I\u2019ve done really well over the last three to four years and why everyone asks how I\u2019m so consistent. It\u2019s because I\u2019ve been able to stay relatively healthy and been able to play a lot of tennis. And not everyone needs to play a ton of matches, but for me, it definitely helps me and gives me a lot of confidence and helps with the consistency that I\u2019ve been able to have over the last few years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was always my issue when I was younger; I couldn\u2019t stay healthy. <\/p>\n

\u201cAfter my hip surgery, I definitely had kind of this awakening moment where one rehab sucks, and I was like, I cannot do this again. I have to do everything in my power to stay healthy, or else I\u2019m never going to give myself a chance to go out there and compete. So, I really reworked my fitness, my nutrition, and it wasn\u2019t that I was doing anything wrong before. I just don\u2019t think I was the most professional in the sense that I didn\u2019t understand all of the things I had to be doing or needed to be doing. And that was just something I didn\u2019t know when I was younger.<\/p>\n

\"2025Photo by Robert Prange\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cNowadays, you see like 13, 14-year-old girls. I mean, it\u2019s like instilled. They have a whole team. They have a physio. They have rehab. They have programs. I don\u2019t know. I missed that gap or window or whatever it was. So, I just didn\u2019t realise how much more I could be doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so, I definitely kind of had a rude awakening after that. To be like, okay, I really need to focus on this and invest in myself. And you know, that was kind of when my parents were still pretty involved in my tennis, and I kind of was like, what? I\u2019m going to make all my decisions from now on because I wanted that to be on me and I wanted to really understand what I needed and my body and not really listen to anyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

She concluded by reflecting positively on the experience, which should encourage Draper: \u201cI was like 24 at the time, so I felt like that was kind of really pivotal for me in terms of staying really healthy. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd, I\u2019ve had a few little nagging things over the last year, obviously stuff\u2019s going to happen, but to that point, it\u2019s the most important thing. I mean, if you\u2019re not healthy and you can\u2019t give yourself the best chance to play, you\u2019re not going to really see the results or see maybe your full potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jessica Pegula says if she\u2019d ever play mixed doubles with Jack Draper again<\/p>\n

Pegula was not finished there though, as she would also appear on Sky Sports to continue chatting about Draper.<\/p>\n

Asked about their doubles partnership, she once again praised her partner: \u201cYeah, it was a lot of fun. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t really know each other at all, but we got along really well. He\u2019s very dry British humour, but I\u2019m also very dry. So I think that\u2019s why we got along very quickly, within the span of a couple days. And it was really fun getting to know him and his team. I was like, \u2018I\u2019m Team Draper now, I\u2019m behind you. \u2019 So it\u2019s been really fun. <\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, obviously had to pull out. So I hope he can get healthy. Obviously, super talented, I feel like he\u2019s probably up there with someone that can take out a Sinner or Alcaraz, but you\u2019ve got to stay healthy. So I\u2019m just hoping he gets healthy and comes back strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

She then sought to dispel one rumour, claiming: \u201cEveryone kept saying, like, oh, we look so serious, blah, blah, blah, because we\u2019re always whispering. But it wasn\u2019t that serious. It was like constant banter basically the whole time. <\/p>\n

\"2025Photo by Matthew Stockman\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t as serious as it looked, which was kind of funny, because everyone kept saying we\u2019re taking it so serious and down to business, it really wasn\u2019t that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if they\u2019d ever consider reuniting in the future, last year\u2019s US Open<\/a> finalist finished by stating: \u201cYeah, I hope so. I think they mentioned something, I was like, \u2018Yeah, sure, I\u2019m down to play whenever. \u2019 I\u2019ll never say no to a lefty serve either, it makes life a lot easier, so I\u2019m like, \u2018hey yeah, whenever you want to play\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jessica Pegula and Jack Draper were two of the standout singles players competing in the US Open\u2019s star-studded…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[7258,8833,101,118,56,54,55,6545],"class_list":{"0":"post-105928","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-jack-draper","9":"tag-jessica-pegula","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom","15":"tag-us-open"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}