American tennis star Jessica Pegula on being ‘normal’ despite her family’s billions.. and how she’s taken inspiration from Coco Gauff and Novak Djokovic

Earlier this US Open, Jessica Pegula did something that millions of New Yorkers do every day.

A video posted to her Instagram account showed her on the subway, but unlike most of the other spectators, she was lugging tennis bags and preparing for her eighth main draw in Queens.

“For me it’s normal,” said Pegula, the current world no. 5 and daughter of billionaires Kim and Terry. ‘And people say, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe you did that.’ And I think, well, why? I like taking the train. I like taking the subway.

“It’s just funny when people assume that I fly privately everywhere, or that I have a chauffeur who’s been driving me around since I was five,” she added. “I’m like, what? Or I have a butler… that’s not how it works,” she said.

Pegula, who spoke exclusively to Mail Sport after her second-round victory over compatriot Sofia Kenin, is a friendly personality who – like her WTA colleagues – has been training for a professional career since childhood.

But it’s not hard to understand where these assumptions come from.

According to Pegula’s father, Terry, he sold most of his natural gas business in 2010 for a whopping $4.7 billion. Bloombergand four years later the family purchased the Buffalo Bills, an NFL team.

A head last summer She even blamed her sixth consecutive Grand Slam quarter-final defeat on a missing “dynamic” that her “family can’t buy” after she was knocked out at Wimbledon.

However, the 30-year-old says her family’s extreme wealth only came in her teens and she believes people sometimes have “the wrong impression” of her.

‘People jump to such exaggerated conclusions. I grew up pretty normally, and a lot of that [her family becoming billionaires] didn’t happen until I was older and playing. My goal since I was six or seven was to be number one in the world. So that was before a lot of that other stuff happened. I mean, before that, I was just a regular kid growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, taking classes after school. So I think that’s just the kind of difference that maybe the average fan doesn’t understand.

“It’s mostly random people online who, I don’t know, probably have nothing better to do,” she added of the stab at her family’s fortune. “But I think everyone on tour knows me really well and clearly knows it’s not easy. So I don’t think there’s any disrespect from anyone I work with, at least.”

Pegula, left, is seen with her family after her parents Terry (center) and Kim (right) bought the Buffalo Bills in 2014

Pegula reached the third round after beating American Sofia Kenin on Thursday

And so it should, as Pegula has built an impressive career and established herself as the second-highest-ranked American woman, behind Coco Gauff.

She has made it to the last eight of every Grand Slam, but not beyond, raising questions about her ability to break through.

Pegula led 4-1 with a break point in the final set of last year’s Wimbledon quarterfinals against Marketa Vondrousova, but eventually lost the match. She changed coaches in February after knocking out Queens in the round of 16 last year.

Discussing her decision to split with her ex-coach David Witt, she previously said she was heading towards the “end of her career phase.” Since that change, her year has been up and down, with second-round exits at the Australian Open and Wimbledon this year before reaching the final in Cincinnati earlier this month.

Still, she seemed optimistic as she spoke from the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center — and she drew inspiration from a male player seven years her senior.

‘Seeing someone like Novak [Djokovic] playing and still clearly being one of the best players in the game at the moment… at such a late age, absolutely, I think you see people performing well [at] later in life, and that will definitely help you.

“Of course I’m turning 30, I’m not going backwards,” she continued. “So I think it’s just stepping into a new set of life, with challenges and maturity, and just wanting to know that I’ve given myself time to maybe try some different things.”

Pegula also draws motivation from people on the other side of the age spectrum.

She has spent a lot of time playing doubles with the 20-year-old Gauff and has gotten to know him well, so it was great to see her win her first Grand Slam in Queens last summer.

Along with Gauff, the soon-to-be-retired Danielle Collins, Emma Navarro and Madison Keys, Pegula is one of five American women currently in the top 20. But she wants to be the next to get her moment in the spotlight.

“I thought it was really nice to see her win that last year,” she said of Gauff. “Of course I would love to win one too. But it definitely helps when you play with someone and practice with someone and you see them do well. It’s definitely motivating.”

Pegula and Coco Gauff met as doubles partners, and the former said she was happy to see her compatriot win the US Open last year

Pegula cited Novak Djokovic, 37, as an inspiration as she enters a new phase in her career

“And I felt like that’s something that a lot of American girls are doing now. I mean, there’s a lot of us, and we all see each other do really well, and when you see that, you feel like you can do the same things. So it’s always motivating and inspiring to see.

Pegula has defeated two American players in this tournament: Kenin and Shelby Rogers, and Spain’s Jessica Bouzas Maneiro awaits in the third round on Saturday.

The consequences of her previous quarter-final shortcomings will obviously haunt her as she progresses through this tournament, but for now – having already achieved her best Grand Slam result of the season – she is living in the present.

“I have to trust that if I keep putting myself in these situations, I will get through it,” she said.

‘…Of course I would like to cross the threshold, but at the same time I have to get there first.’