DUBAI DUTY FREE TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPS

February 16, 2025

Jessica Pegula

Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Jessica, welcome.

JESSICA PEGULA: Thanks.

THE MODERATOR: What are you looking forward to most this week in Dubai?

JESSICA PEGULA: I think just excited for the challenge of trying to do well this week. Work my way through the draw, play some good matches. I think I want to just continue to incorporate stuff I've been working on, kind of just go from there.

I'm pretty much going home after this. I feel like I just want to kind of give everything I can for this week and go home, I guess.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Hot topic right now. We have to ask about Jannik. None of us expected that you can settle a case in anti-doping. There's always something new happening. What was your reaction to that?

JESSICA PEGULA: Yeah, I'd heard, like, rumors that possibly he was going to be getting suspended. Obviously I had no idea when, what was going to happen.

I think my reaction is that just, like, whether you think he did or you don't, or whatever side you're on, the process just seems to be completely like not a process. It seems to just kind of be whatever decisions and factors they take into consideration, and they just kind of make up their own ruling. I don't really understand how that's fair for athletes, how it's fair for players when there's just so much inconsistency and you have no idea.

We get, like, these emails of it all explaining this is why this happened, this is why that happened. It's like you could say that about anything. I can give a reason and explain a million different ways to make it sound right. I feel like that's what's been happening the last few years. There's always just an explanation of all these extreme or weird circumstances and cases.

I just don't understand how you can trust a process. This is me. Just even it doesn't matter what side you're on. It literally doesn't. If you're clean or not, the process is completely broken. I think it needs to be seriously looked at and considered.

I feel like they have so much power to ruin someone's career, as well. I think there needs to be something done about that because it just seems really unfair.

I don't think any of the players trust the process at all right now. Zero. It's just a horrible look for the sport when you're getting so much inconsistency throughout player rulings and stuff like that.

Yeah, I don't really know what to think. I think from the past couple years there seems to be no rhyme or reason for whatever they decide. So I'm not really that shocked that there all of a sudden is a settlement because that's kind of what they've been doing. Doesn't seem to make sense for anything.

I can't say I'm completely surprised by that. But again, the doesn't make sense, so I'm not really sure. I'm sure they'll come up with another reason as to why that happened. I don't know.

Q. When you hear about these sorts of things, how much do you read on each case and form your own opinion, and how does that impact your own situation?

JESSICA PEGULA: I think there are people that just read headlines and they have no idea of the in-depth things that are taken into consideration. I think there's different rulings based on the class of drug that they take or tested positive timing-wise.

Just being on players council, too, I think maybe I get a lot of in-depth info explanation why this ruling happened. I definitely think I take my time to read and understand that because I think that's important. You want to give that player the benefit of the doubt and the process obviously looked at. You want to be able to trust that process as well.

Some them, yeah, you're like, Okay, that kind of makes sense of why this happened, stuff like that. I think it's easy nowadays to read a headline and jump to conclusions. I think that's very important. That is something I always want to be privy to and read about, make sure I just educate myself, as well.

Q. I want to talk to you about the Rybakina case. As member of the players council, I wonder, not particularly about her case, but the WTA's handling of it, does it give you confidence in the system, especially given that the WTA has always stood up in terms of with Dokic and earlier with Mary Pierce? They've come down hard on this. Does this give you hope? How do you look at this whole situation?

JESSICA PEGULA: Yeah, I mean, I think the safeguarding thing is something we've added into the tour. That has been very important the last couple years, once I started, I don't know, maybe a couple years ago.

Tennis, to be fairly honest, is just not a healthy sport for women as far as, like, you're very secluded from a young age. You're mentally traveling every single week. You're with a lot of different people. A lot of times your family can't come with you. When you start doing that at ages 13, 14, 15, it can go sideways fast. I think we've learned that from a lot of the cases back in the day.

You were talking about Dokic, Mary Pierce. I know we have the tournaments, like you're not allowed to play so many tournaments at such a young age, to prevent burnout from like Tracy Austin. I think they've done a good job of learning how to manage that.

It can turn into a kind of unhealthy way to grow up I just feel like, because you're not a normal kid, you're not a normal teenager, you're not a normal young adult, and you're traveling around the world. It can just be very, very stressful.

I think as far as that regard, they're definitely taking a lot of good steps as far as mental health, being aware, being able to go to safeguarding, report and feel like if there's something going on, your word is safe with us and we're going to try to help you. Not only that, but with other players, we're all around each other. We all see things that are going on.

Even though you're smart, you pick up on things, you notice certain things happening, but maybe there's nothing definitive. I think it's important to have a space people can report maybe something they saw because you don't know how that can help someone in the future.

I think all that stuff is really, really important because the sport is really difficult mentally, physically, just trying to mature as a young woman.

I think it's only a certain part of your life. You have to make sure that we protect those people at that time in their lives. I mean, this is stuff that if you play whatever, still you're 30-ish, let's say, you have the whole rest of your life and you don't want someone to have any traumatic experiences in that time, to be able to go on and live a normal, healthy life past their post-tennis career.

I do think the safeguarding has been really, really important. Obviously not everything is perfect, but just having that safe space is I think extremely necessary.

Q. To that end, safeguarding and anti-doping are both processes meant to protect the players and the sport. Is there something from the process by which the WTA is safeguarding players that can be applied to anti-doping, make that system more effective?

JESSICA PEGULA: As far as I know, they're completely separate. I don't think the WTA has really any control over that.

Q. From your experience, how would you...

JESSICA PEGULA: I feel like the safeguarding has a lot of player input. I think it's a lot of experiences that we've seen and been through that go into that. So it's very player-driven.

I think that's important because we're the ones that see things that are going on, we're the ones that see things are happening, or it's happened to us. So we're giving that direct feedback that these things cannot happen. Obviously they have their own process that they set up through council and lawyers and all this stuff.

Yeah, the anti-doping, I honestly have no idea really. It just seems like... I don't know. It's a board of people. It's a lot of different things.

I mean, I saw this year the U.S. cut a lot of their funding to them because they don't trust them anymore. Obviously there's clearly issues.

It seems very difficult to kind of communicate with them from a player side. That can maybe help. I don't know.

Q. About the safeguarding, with the Vukov case, there's very little information that's been released by the WTA. They probably have their reasons. The lack of transparency means that any information we have is what someone heard or what's coming out from the person who got banned. Does it hurt the process, do you think, that the WTA didn't come out and say this is the Code of Conduct that was breached, this is one, two, three, how we based our decision? There was nothing in that statement. If you're comfortable commenting on that...

JESSICA PEGULA: Yeah, I mean, I'm sure maybe communication could have been more direct and clear. But as far as transparency, I think that's a very fine line that you have to walk.

The entire point of safeguarding, as well, is to be able to tell private information and know that you are okay telling that, and your name's not going to be out there, maybe these incidents are going to be out there. Maybe for the victim in that case, you don't want anything coming out that would make them up comfortable. There's so many layers to it.

I think when it comes to things like that, privacy I think is really priority. I know if I had something similar, I don't think I would want anyone airing my dirty laundry of maybe the incident or what happened or the people that were involved.

Also it's got to be a safe place for other players to report into. I shouldn't be able to know that so-and-so has been reporting things about me and my coach. Then that causes an issue between me and that player. I don't really think that's fair.

I don't know obviously the details of her case either. I don't know. But I don't really think I should know. I think people nowadays just have this feeling that they have a right to someone's personal life, with social media, online, they have the right to know things. In some cases, yes. But I think in safeguarding, you just don't agree with it.

Of course, what you're saying, maybe being more transparent on the process. It always can get better. Safeguarding is relatively new. Hopefully it doesn't happen again that we have something like this. But hopefully maybe it's communicated a little bit cleaner. Maybe that would have helped. Who knows.

Q. About the same thing. The optics in this case are particularly bad because you have a Wimbledon champion, you have a top player, who has been told that you're stupid, and most of that was said on television. But the person who said it, he's nowhere. No questions can be asked of him. Does that put things in the shadows somewhat?

JESSICA PEGULA: I mean, I don't know. Honestly, I don't know enough about her case or about them. I honestly don't even know them that well. I know her. She's always very sweet to me when we practice and stuff like that. I'm not really privy to those conversations. I don't really know that much.

I mean, the process, how they want to handle it is how they want to handle it. I just don't know enough of that information to really say anything other than that.

Q. I know you have a skin care line. I know athletes have been getting into fragrances. Is that something that intrigues you? Maybe what kind of fragrance?

JESSICA PEGULA: Much like your questions better (smiling).

What fragrance? There's this one fragrance I love from this brand called Replica called Beach Walk. A sandy, oceany kind of vibe. I think I'll go with something like that. I'll maybe tell Ons to make one because she's the fragrance girl. Tell her to make some special for me.

Thank you.