World No. 5 Jessica Pegula jokingly suggested she didn’t miss much by basically skipping the entire clay season since Iga Swiatek dominated the clay swing as expected.
After kicking off her clay season in the first week of the swing in Charleston, Pegula represented the United States in a Billie Jean King Cup qualifiers tie against Belgium. Although Pegula won both of her BJK Cup singles matches, she sustained a rib injury and ended up being sidelined until this week’s WTA 250 tournament in ‘s-Hertogenbosch.
While Pegula was working on recovering from a rib injury, world No. 1 Swiatek claimed back-to-back WTA 1000 titles in Madrid and Rome before also completing a three-peat at the French Open. For the second top-ranked American female tennis player, missing several important tournaments wasn’t easy but at least she found comfort in knowing what would have happened had she managed to play.
On Monday, No. 1 seed Pegula started her comeback and grass season with a dominant 6-2 6-2 win over Aliaksandra Sasnovich in ‘s-Hertogenbosch.
“Iga dominated the clay season, what else is new. Now we go into grass and I’m sure the grass-court players will do well. I feel like I’m walking back into the same kind of thing. That’s good,” Pegula told WTA Insider.
