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World No. 3 Jessica Pegula has received compliments from former tennis player Lindsay Davenport despite her disappointing group-stage exit from the WTA Finals in both singles and doubles.
Davenport pointed out that nobody at the start of the season would have predicted Pegula to be ranked in the top three and the highest-ranked American, adding that she had improved every facet of her game.
"I'm not sure how many people a year ago would have chosen her (Jessica Pegula) to be third in the world and the highest-ranked American. But Pegula... she puts in so much hard work quietly. Everything has gotten better about her game," Davenport said during a discussion on Tennis Channel.
Pegula had a tough schedule at the WTA Finals as she was forced to play both singles and doubles fixtures on all her match days. The 28-year-old lost all three of her singles and doubles matches at Fort Worth this week.
While acknowledging that Pegula was tired, Davenport said the World No. 3 would learn from this and put in the hard yards ahead of next season.
"She (Jessica Pegula) was tired here. Sometimes you have to play 70-80 matches when you include doubles, in one season. She will get there, she is learning every season and we know she'll go back and put the hard yards in," she stated.
"It definitely feels like I hit a wall a little bit" - Jessica Pegula on her WTA Finals exit
Jessica Pegula was utterly disappointed with her performance at the WTA Finals. After her straight-sets defeat against Aryna Sabalenka on Friday, Pegula stated that she felt like she "hit a wall."
"It definitely feels like I hit a wall a little bit today, just as far as physically, mentally," Pegula said.
The American went on to speak about the need to end the season strong, something she had clearly failed to do.
"I keep telling myself I had such a great year, but that's the tough thing with tennis, you need to end the year really well and then I come here and I lose all my matches," she added.
Pegula played her final match of the WTA Finals alongside compatriot Coco Gauff in doubles, going down 6-2, 6-1 to the Czech pairing of Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova.
