| Venue: Flushing Meadows, New York Dates: 29 August-11 September |
| Coverage: Daily radio commentaries across BBC Sounds and the BBC Sport website and app, with selected live text commentaries and match reports on the website and app |
Still loaded with endorphins and adrenalin, Danielle Collins went along with the premise.
“I came from nothing, and when you come from nothing you have nothing to lose.”
It was an irresistible soundbite. The Louis Armstrong Stadium crowd gobbled it up, hollering their approval. Collins – the daughter of a gardener and a grade-school teacher – was their adopted underdog, snarl sharpened by adversity.
The theory is a well-worn one. Mean streets breed a winning streak. Boxing great Marvin Hagler summed it up in words. “It’s hard to get up at 6am when you’re wearing silk pyjamas,” he said.
The Williams sisters’ journey from Compton to champions bore it out in gold.
But Jessica Pegula is different.
The American number one, who beat Petra Kvitova on Monday to reach the US Open quarter-finals, is from the other side of the tracks.
Pegula is the daughter of Terry Pegula, an oil and gas magnate who, according to Forbes, is worth $6.7bn (£5.82bn).
It’s wealth beyond wealth. But, Pegula says, it guarantees little on the court.
“I have never wanted people to think I was given things,” she told BBC Sport.
“I think I have definitely earned my stripes in the tennis world.
“There are people on the outside who maybe don’t understand, who make assumptions.”
The buy-in to the Tour game is undeniably high. Annual travel and coaching costs can hit six figures at the top end.
Pegula’s family, who bought NFL team the Buffalo Bills in 2014, said they would support the teenager with the costs as she turned professional. Five years later, though, they wondered if their investment was worth it. For her, as much as them.
Pegula’s promise had been spiked by injuries. A knee operation in 2014 was followed by a leg injury and then keyhole hip surgery in the early part of 2017. Every ranking rise seemed to precede a return to painful rehabilitation. The bright lights and big stages always seemed out of reach.
In October 2017, the comeback trail ran through the Van der Meer Shipyard Tennis Club. On Hilton Head, off the South Carolina coast, it mainly serves seniors who want a change from the resort’s golf courses and beaches.
Pegula went there, along the…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at BBC Sport – Tennis…