Jessica Pegula has advanced to the fourth round of the 2026 Miami Open. Amid her run in the tournament, the former world No. 3 shared her thoughts on being ranked sixth on the tour in 2026 for the most aces hit.
Pegula is seeded fifth at the WTA 1000 hard-court tournament in Florida and began her campaign in the second round after receiving a first-round bye. She advanced to the third round when her second-round opponent, Francesca Jones, retired due to illness with the score at 6-1, 3-0. In the third round, Pegula defeated No. 26 seed Leylah Fernandez 6-2, 6-2.
Jessica Pegula Reacts to Her Surprising Ace Statistics at the 2026 Miami Open
After her second-round match, while speaking to the press, Pegula learned about her sixth-place ranking for aces hit. Amusingly, she mentioned she would need to “screenshot” the statistic because she wasn’t sure how long it would last. She said that she has been working on her serve for quite some time, even before she started working with coaches Mark Knowles and Mark Merklein.
“Not sure how long that’s going to live, so I need to screenshot it. I’ve been working on my serve. I changed it, actually, right when I first started working with both the Marks (Mark Knowles and Mark Merklein), actually, changed it like a month before I started working with them. Then I kind of evolved from one thing onto the next, on to the next, on the next,” Pegula said.
The former world No. 3 mentioned that she improved her serve by studying “good servers” in the game and experimenting with different techniques, acknowledging that it has been a process over the last couple of years.
“Then just always being, I think, really open, watching a lot of other really good servers, what it is that they do. I like to experiment and try different things just to see if I can kind of feel like, ‘Oh actually that feels better, or no that feels worse,’ and I kind of just build off of that. It’s just been a process over the last couple of years,” she added.
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Looking ahead, Pegula is set to face No. 34 seed Jaqueline Cristian in the fourth round of the 2026 Miami Open. The Romanian secured her place by defeating Peyton Stearns (6-4, 7-5) and Ekaterina Alexandrova (6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (5)) in the second and third rounds, respectively.
Pegula and Cristian have faced each other only once on the WTA Tour, during the first round of the 2023 Australian Open, where the American secured a 6-0, 6-1 win. The winner of their match in Florida will advance to face either No. 3 seed Elena Rybakina or qualifier Talia Gibson in the quarterfinals.
In addition to her singles campaign, Pegula is also competing in the doubles event alongside Storm Hunter. They defeated the duo of Ann Li and Magda Linette (6-2, 6-2) in the first round and will take on Mirra Andreeva and Victoria Mboko in the second round.
