Pegula is not naive to how such complaints could be perceived by the public, but the 32-year-old is thoughtful and articulate when putting forward their case.<\/p>\n
![\"Aryna](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/dd6f5a70-978f-4965-9353-fd2f38820ffe.jpg\")
Pegula says the strike threat by Sabalenka along with Sinner\u2019s comments about a possible boycott, have \u201cstruck a fire and really blown up, and that\u2019s honestly what we needed\u201dTiziana FABI\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re really looking at is player welfare, pensions, stuff like that. That\u2019s really important and right now the grand-slams don\u2019t contribute anything,\u201d the American says. \u201cSecond to that is the prize money revenue share not changing. It\u2019s not meant to look like \u2018we want more money\u2019, that it\u2019s greedy, it\u2019s just what\u2019s fair. When you look at other sports, the revenue share [in tennis] is not changing. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it goes up, it will give lower-ranked players more money to be able to support their careers, whether that\u2019s the first rounds at slams or qualifying, which can pay for their coaching or travel for an entire year, so it all goes hand in hand to help the whole ecosystem grow. <\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like other sports have done more in that sense. The slams are just doing the same as they always have, but have we ever really got together and questioned it? It\u2019s amazing that we\u2019re seeing the men and women together. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s ever really happened in any sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
The revenue share at Roland Garros is estimated to have actually decreased by 0.6 per cent this year, despite prize money itself rising by 9.5 per cent. Wimbledon is due to announce its prize money for 2026 next month and distributes 90 per cent of its surplus \u2014 \u00a348.1million last year \u2014 back to the LTA to develop tennis in the UK, but that is another looming flashpoint. <\/p>\n
Pegula adds that Sinner\u2019s<\/a> and Sabalenka\u2019s<\/a> comments\u00a0at the Italian Open were not co-ordinated, but simply a case of them \u201cspeaking the truth\u201d about feeling disrespected and ignored. \u201cWhen you see two No1s come out and be really against it, it\u2019s kind of struck a fire and really blown up, and that\u2019s honestly what we needed,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n As for the prospect of a boycott, Pegula is measured but still adamant that she will support the player group\u2019s next steps, whatever they may be: \u201cI\u2019m always going to be on the side of the players.\u201d<\/p>\n It is not the only time-consuming political role Pegula has taken on while performing at the peak of the game. She was also recently appointed as the chairwoman of the WTA\u2019s Architecture Council, which is discussing how to overhaul the tennis calendar to mitigate the number of players suffering from injuries and burnout \u2014 a protracted process that Pegula is unlikely to see the benefit of during her own career. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen you get older, you come across all these issues that keep happening, and I\u2019m more of a person that\u2019s like, \u2018Well, why don\u2019t we do something about it?\u2019\u200a\u201d Pegula says. \u201cI\u2019ve realised that you want to leave something behind, a bit of a legacy, and give back to your sport. Not everyone wants to do that as a player. Maybe it\u2019s the background of my family. Maybe it\u2019s just that how I\u2019ve thought about my career is a bit different.\u201d<\/p>\n Pegula has won 11 titles on the WTA Tour, reached the US Open final in 2024 and spent the\u00a0past 205 consecutive weeks ranked inside the top ten. Although her family\u2019s wealth was an obvious advantage, success is\u00a0not handed out in tennis without a degree of toil and tumult. A solid but by no means standout junior, Pegula turned professional in 2009, aged 15, and did not break into the top 100 for a decade, instead playing in lower-rung events on the unglamorous Challenger circuit. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was tough and I think I gained a lot of respect from other players that were on the same journey,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve always tried to carry myself as just a normal person because that\u2019s to me how I am. I\u2019m definitely aware that I was very privileged and had a lot of good opportunities, and I didn\u2019t want to waste those.<\/p>\n \u201cMy dad is super blue collar. He grew up with nothing and built his way up, and that mindset was instilled in my family from a young age. We didn\u2019t come into a lot of that [wealth] until I was 17 or 18. If I grew up with all that stuff, maybe I would be different, but I think I\u2019ve also embraced it. I do have this really crazy story. People think this way about me, but that\u2019s OK. I\u2019m still going to work hard and go after my goals that I\u2019ve had since I was seven.\u201d<\/p>\n Injuries and inconsistency plagued much of Pegula\u2019s early twenties before her mother, Kim, who was central to running the family\u2019s sports businesses before suffering a stroke in 2022, made unapologetically clear she needed to take more responsibility and escape the purgatory outside the top 100. <\/p>\n Pegula won her first WTA title shortly afterwards in 2019 and within three seasons had risen to world No3. \u201cI wasn\u2019t really doing that great. I was OK, I was hurt a lot, all these other things, but I made the decision to take my career into my own hands, and that helped me mature really quickly and my career has been going up ever since,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n \u201cI always believed I could do it. Over the last few years, working on different things has freed me up. I don\u2019t think, \u2018I need to make semis,\u2019 or, \u2018I need to win this tournament,\u2019 as much. I\u2019ve dropped the whole results aspect of it and I\u2019m solely focused on what I need to do to become a better player.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously I still want to win and I have goals, but it\u2019s not at the forefront. Tennis is so focused on results and we play so much that it can create this really unhealthy balance.\u201d<\/p>\n A grand-slam title is obviously the biggest accolade to still elude Pegula. She beat Iga Swiatek, then the world No1, en route to the 2024 final at Flushing Meadows before losing to Sabalenka. Pegula also reached the semi-finals of the US Open last year, losing to Sabalenka again, and the Australian Open in January, where she was beaten by the eventual champion Elena Rybakina. That proximity to sporting greatness can define many athletes, but Pegula sees the bigger picture \u2014 both on and off the court. <\/p>\n \u201cIf you would have asked me three or four years ago, I would have been satisfied if I stopped,\u201d she says. \u201cI have a very good awareness of who I am and my career. I had something to prove to myself early on, but now everything else just seems like a bonus. I\u2019m extremely motivated, but I\u2019m content that I\u2019ve tried to turn every stone and do everything I can to try to become a better player, but at the same time knowing it\u2019s not the be all and end all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A billionaire\u2019s daughter would not necessarily seem the natural candidate to front a campaign for greater prize money.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-578544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578544","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=578544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Jessica](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/029318b2-1d04-4fc0-85e2-9800345785a2.jpg\")
Pegula is also involved in discussions about overhauling the tennis calendar to reduce injuries and burnoutClive Brunskill\/Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"Jessica](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4788cfbe-389f-4c2b-9230-4357c53dc9b2.jpg\")
Pegula with her father, Terry. \u201cHe grew up with nothing and built his way up, and that mindset was instilled in my family from a young age,\u201d she says<\/p>\n![\"Jessica](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/abd4a0a9-ac4a-4d4f-84de-b748b289d83a.jpg\")
Pegula reached the US Open final in 2024Sarah Stier\/Getty Images<\/p>\n