Jessica Pegula on Tennis: Pay, Saudi Deals, and Women’s Sports Boom

Professional tennis is at a pivotal juncture, with several potential major off-court changes looming—from an ATP-WTA merger to significant schedule and prize money modifications.

Last month, organizers of the four Grand Slams—the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open—rejected a proposal from the top men’s and women’s tours that would have created a new tournament calendar and increased purses. 

This week, a French outlet reported the top 20 players on the ATP and WTA tours sent a letter to the Grand Slams demanding a higher share of revenue, as the majors typically pay out less than 20% to players, compared to roughly half in other major U.S. sports.

One of those top players is Jessica Pegula, the daughter of Bills owners Terry and Kim Pegula, who is currently ranked No. 4 on the WTA. Front Office Sports caught up with Pegula after her first-round victory at the Credit One Charleston Open to discuss the big changes and other off-court issues facing tennis. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What are your thoughts on the health of women’s tennis and the WTA Tour?

It’s an exciting time. Even though it may seem like there’s a lot going on, I think pivotal moments like this are what can take it to the next level. It’s good that there’s a lot of discussion and fire behind changes that are coming, whether it’s the calendar, or the Tour, or players. To me, it’s a good sign that the sport’s actually growing, and that we’re looking to keep pushing, and hopefully get paid more, which is great for our sport.

Is there one looming change at the top of your mind?

For me, it would definitely be getting a higher revenue share at the Grand Slams. I think that’s really important. Those four slams dominate our calendar, as far as exposure, revenue, and how much they’re making. They’re the four biggest for a reason. Tennis is a very fragmented sport, and I think the slams are definitely fragmented as well. They do the best out of everybody, but they also stand on their own individually. So getting that revenue share higher towards the players is a big priority of mine.

What type of trickle-down effect would getting a higher revenue share have?

It would just be huge for the sport, in general. I think players would be much happier. Not even just revenue share, but also toward player benefits. I know the ATP has a lot of money that goes into bonus pools. We have pensions and different things going on, and I think it would just give back to the sport so much more if we could get more out of that.

It’s been roughly 12 months since the WTA signed a multiyear deal with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. How do you feel the partnership is going? 

I think good. It’s kind of new for us. I know the men have already been established with them. But honestly, so far, so good. I don’t think there’s been a lot of negative backlash about that. It’s been going smoothly.

As a tennis player, what’s it been like watching the women’s sports boom in other leagues?

It’s been really cool. It’s interesting being an American and seeing college basketball really explode with Caitlin Clark, and now the WNBA. We’ve had women’s soccer getting paid more, comparatively to the men. So, there’s definitely been this building momentum. Even though tennis is, I think, the highest-paid women’s sport, it’s international. So, I feel like I don’t hear about it as much because the women’s sports in the U.S. have gotten so much traction—popular sports like basketball or soccer—and I think with tennis sometimes it gets lost that we’ve actually been leading that for a while. So, it’s amazing to see the other sports starting to catch up and just push that. But at the same time, I feel like there’s still so much room to improve on our side. And it’s cool that we’ve been able to set an example a little bit, and I feel like the WTA Tour is always trying to do that. We just did a new maternity fund, which is really, really, cool. That’s just stepping another bar up, and hopefully we can get more women’s sports to follow our lead.

Outside of tennis, what business of sports stories are you following?

The Celtics just got bought. That was weird. I was at the Miami tournament for the last two weeks. I’ve been out of it, a lot of long days and late matches, but I need to follow up with what happened there. My husband keeps telling me about the Yankees, they changed all their bats and they set a record, and now he’s obsessed and fascinated with what’s going on. So that’s interesting. What else is going on? LeBron James might go to the Middle East with that super league thing? There’s so much going on.