Jessica Pegula on her mother’s health struggles

You mentioned your mom, she went through a, you know, sort sort of a serious health incident. How is she doing and how difficult was it to play tennis through that? >> Yeah, that was really tough. Um, yeah, she ended up having a heart issue where, you know, she went into cardiac arrest and um, that was a lot to deal with, but I think for the most part we're on the other end of it now where, you know, the stressful part of all the unknowns are kind of over. And I think for about a year and a half to almost two years, there were just a lot of things that we weren't sure were going to happen either health-wise and just taking care of her wise. But now I think she's able to travel, she's able to experience things with us and I think at the end of the day that's the most important. And um, you know, the part that we cherish the most being able to spend time with her and her being able to enjoy things with us again has uh, been super rewarding, but I think during that whole time tennis was still kind of therapeutic for me and I think really helped me honestly get away from all of it because it was so stressful when I would come home, but I was able to kind of use it as a way to escape when I was on the court. When I got to play uh, tournaments and I know that's, you know, what she would have wanted anyway. She wouldn't have wanted me to to be home worrying about her. She'd wanted me to be out there playing tournaments and and competing. So I think ultimately tennis really helped me get through that.