{"id":96895,"date":"2025-08-20T13:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T13:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/96895\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T13:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T13:27:08","slug":"jack-draper-jessica-pegula-share-funny-post-match-exchange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/96895\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Draper, Jessica Pegula share funny post-match exchange"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While Jack Draper and Jessica Pegula may have said all of four words to each other before teaming up for this week\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/08\/19\/sports\/fans-players-embracing-u-s-opens-revamped-mixed-doubles-tournament\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">U.S. Open mixed doubles tournament<\/a>, the two already sound like an \u201cold married couple,\u201d one reporter joked during a hilarious back-and-forth on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Pegula and Draper were speaking with reporters after they had defeated Emma Raducanu and Carlos Alcaraz and Daniil Medvedev and Mirra Andreeva to advance to the semifinals.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Draper was asked about his seriousness on the court during the matches and what it would mean to win, he replied that \u201cit would mean a lot\u201d and that \u201cobviously it is like a bit of an exhibition format. It\u2019s nice to play with someone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"36878262\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/jessica-pegula-us-jack-draper-109809058.jpg\" alt=\"Jessica Pegula and Jack Draper at the US Open mixed doubles match.\" class=\"wp-image-36878262\"\/>Jessica Pegula of the US and Jack Draper of Britain confer during their first round mixed doubles match against Britain\u2019s Emma Raducanu and Carlos Alcaraz of Spain at the US Open on August 19, 2025. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>That kicked off a funny exchange as Pegula jokingly admonished Draper for calling it an \u201cexhibition.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou shouldn\u2019t be saying that, but that\u2019s OK,\u201d she said to him.<\/p>\n<p>The No. 5-ranked men\u2019s tennis player in the world was a bit confused at first, thinking that his comment about winning was what Pegula had first been referring to.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah. It\u2019s not an exhibition. I know what you\u2019re saying,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m hearing that a lot, it\u2019s a bit of an exhibition, a bit of fun, why am I so locked in,\u201d Draper continued. \u201cIt\u2019s a good opportunity to play, do well, get a lot of points in before next week, yeah. Like, I\u2019m enjoying being locked in. I don\u2019t know why it\u2019s a crime to be locked in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The moment amused Pegula as she jumped back in laughing as she said, \u201cNo, it\u2019s fine. I\u2019m just laughing at the \u2018exhibition\u2019 part.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"36878267\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/jessica-pegula-united-states-jack-109809808.jpg\" alt=\"Jessica Pegula and Jack Draper playing mixed doubles tennis.\" class=\"wp-image-36878267\"  \/> Jessica Pegula of United States and Jack Draper of Great Britain play Carlos Alcaraz of Spain and Emma Raducanu of Great Britain during the mixed doubles first round at USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on August 19, 2025. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>It led the reporter to chime in about the two sounding like they had known each other for quite some time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, it was a great answer,\u201d Pegula added with a smile.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The pair certainly played like they\u2019ve known each other for a long time as Pegula and Draper dispatched their first round opponents, 4-2, 4-2 and then sent their quarterfinal opponents home in quick order, 4-1,4-1.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Pegula and Draper will face <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/08\/19\/sports\/iga-swiatek-makes-most-extreme-schedule-look-easy-at-us-open-mixed-doubles\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the No. 3 seed Iga Swiatek and Casper Rudd<\/a> in the semifinals on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Jack Draper and Jessica Pegula may have said all of four words to each other before teaming&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[23004,99,428,14687],"class_list":{"0":"post-96895","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-jessica-pegula","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-tennis","11":"tag-us-open-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}