FORT WORTH—Who said the Hologic WTA tour wants for rivalries?
The 2022 WTA Finals opened with a sequel of its most recent 1000-level final, a clash between world No. 3 Jessica Pegula and Maria Sakkari, who punched the final ticket to Fort Worth by finishing runner-up in Guadalajara.
Though she arrived under the wire, the momentum was clearly with Sakkari in her pre-tournament press conference as she projected smoldering confidence—think Taylor Swift’s “Vigilante Shit”—about the looming rematch.
“Obviously, it was energy, but I don’t want to take anything away from her,” she said of the fatigue that factored into her straight-set defeat. “She played a great tournament and a great match. But I believe that I can do better this time. Things are going to change from my side.”
Pegula was equally wary despite coming off the biggest title of her career.
“I think maybe some people are, like, ‘Oh, well, she just beat her in Guadalajara.’ Maybe the thought process is, ‘Oh, it should be an easy matchup.’ But I think at the same time it’s almost harder because obviously she’s going to go back and try to change things,” she explained on Media Day.
“The courts are totally different. The surface is different. The balls are different. Not at altitude. There’s a lot of dynamic that changes with that, and I’m going to try and stick to my game plan to what I thought worked well in Guadalajara, but that might have to change a little bit with the conditions.”