Jessica Pegula – Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We will go straight to questions, please.

Q. I think you’re in your seventh straight semifinal. What do you think has been the key to your consistency?

JESSICA PEGULA: I don’t know. Well, I kind of know. Since last summer, I was working on a lot of things. I didn’t play well in – I don’t know where it was – Montreal, Cincinnati. I felt like I had a couple losses that I wasn’t playing well. I didn’t feel like myself. I didn’t feel like I was playing my game. I was kind of getting overly frustrated.

I think even though I knew at the time it was tough, I knew if I could kind of come out of that, figure out what it is I needed to change and do better, that I was going to become a much better player.

My coaches and I worked on a lot of stuff to get my game back, to emphasize what I do really well, kind of get back to the true roots of my game, just make that even better and more efficient.

I think I’ve been serving a lot better. Physically been feeling good. Moving better again. I think I had a little bit of a chronic knee thing that’s been back and forth since probably over a year ago. That’s been feeling a lot better.

There’s a lot of things. But honestly been working on my game a lot. I think I’ve become a better player over the last six months.

Q. The difference between this court and Court No. 1…

JESSICA PEGULA: Yeah, I think always to me pretty much every tournament center court always feels slightly slower. This center court here is a little bit slower, a little bit bouncier.

I think the new Court 1 is a little bit faster, like the other courts. There’s always a little bit of a difference. But I feel that’s pretty much every tournament we play. I think the center court doesn’t get as much play on it. It tends to pretty much always play a little bit slower.

Q. You have been in the position where you’re on players council, you can make suggestions, but ultimately there’s limited power.

JESSICA PEGULA: Yeah.

Q. How is the Architecture Committee going to be any different?

JESSICA PEGULA: Well, I think when we have a new person coming in, Valerie, who just started in, I don’t know, November. She’s very new to all this.

I think she really did a great job of trying to talk to a lot of players, get a feel of what do I need to focus on, what are my priorities right now. There’s a lot of things. But what are my priorities. One of them was the tournament schedule.

I think in this way she’s just trying to show that she is very committed into working her hardest, making it a priority, I think also making it a priority for change very quickly. I know that she wants to have things going for next year.

I think in the past the WTA has been a little bit slow to kind of make some changes. So I think it’s more sending a message that she’s really committed to it, the council’s really committed to trying to make change. I think it’s kind of just a, Hey, we hear you and we’re trying to make a difference here and we’re going to try and do this the best, fastest way possible.

Q. How do you find the energy through all this? You’re in the semis of all these tournaments, playing singles and doubles. What is the motivation?

JESSICA PEGULA: I don’t know. People just ask me to do things and I tend to say yes to everything (smiling). I don’t really say no very often.

But no, I think in a sense, though, I’m pretty laid back. I don’t get overly stressed very easily. I think because I’m able to manage a lot of things naturally maybe with my personality, that it doesn’t quite worry me and stress me out.

But I don’t really think this role will be changing much more than I already do. We already had some circuit structure councils in place previously over the last two or years that I’ve been on. It just hasn’t been a priority.

I think now that’s really the only difference. I think just having my name there as a top player will kind of help, I don’t know, steer that.

But yeah, I don’t know. People just ask me to do things.

Q. Looking ahead, we don’t know who you’re going to play, but Mirra and Amanda.

JESSICA PEGULA: Both are going to be really tough. I know Mirra obviously won this tournament, plays very well here. Is a great athlete, moves great. Really smart player, really good serve. Had a good start to the year, as well. That’s going to be tricky. We’ve also never played before, so that will be a little interesting.

Amanda, opposite. Just played her in Australia. I’ve played her many times. We have had a lot of really close matches. It will be interesting to see.

I think they’re going to have a good match. They both have been playing well. Yeah, just kind of gets tougher from here on out. Either way I’ll try to do my best to be ready.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports