Pegula on Keys: "Madison taught us the importance of stepping out of our comfort zone".
At the end of January, Madison Keys won the biggest title of her career when she triumphed at the Australian Open. The new world No. 6 has had a difficult career.
In the end, Keys successively eliminated Danielle Collins, Elena Rybakina, Elina Svitolina, Iga Swiatek (saving a match point), before preventing Aryna Sabalenka from making it three in a row in the Melbourne final.
Jessica Pegula, who had lost to Madison Keys in the Adelaide final the previous week, spoke of her compatriot after her Round of 16 victory over Daria Kasatkina at the Doha tournament.
"It's great to see the journey of each of my teammates, each has a different story that can be rewritten in many possible ways throughout a career.
I've also seen this in my career, which developed a little late. It's a totally different case to Madison, who had already been on the circuit for so many years.
It takes a lot of courage to do what Madison did, so it bothers me when people question our changes even though we're working to improve.
You have to take risks. Maybe by trying something different you can get better performance, you can get an extra 5-10% margin.
With Madison, we already knew she could hit the ball like nobody else, but that 5-10% can usually make the difference between winning a Grand Slam and losing in the quarter-finals," Pegula began.
"In tennis, it's not so easy to make changes, it's very much a matter of feeling. My husband plays field hockey and he always tells me that he doesn't understand why we change things all the time.
I'm always ready to try things out, because you never know, if things go wrong, at least I'll be able to say I tried.
What I don't want to do is retire, look back and think about what would have happened if I'd made those changes. Madison has taught us the importance of getting out of our comfort zone," she concludes for the WTA.
