Jessica Pegula comes from a famous family as her parents Terry and Kim Pegula are well-known in American sporting circles as they own two big franchises, but Terry and Kim have made it clear that Jessica will always be their “first sports team and our favourite”.
Terry and Kim Pegula are the owners of the National Football League (NFL) side the Buffalo Bills and the National Hockey League outfit the Buffalo Sabres.
The family’s net worth is reportedly $7.7 billion with most of the earnings coming from Terry’s oil and gas business ventures.
But that hasn’t detracted them from supporting their “favourite team”.
“We always say she’s our first sports team and our favourite,” Kim said back in 2019 on WKBW-TV. “People often ask us which team we like better, what sport we like better, and she’s always been our first team and our favourite team.”
And their “favourite team” will play in her maiden Grand Slam final on Saturday as she will face Aryna Sabalenka in the US Open showpiece match at Flushing Meadows.
Pegula has enjoyed an incredible few months as she is just the fourth woman in the Open Era to reach the Canada, Cincinnati and US Open finals in the same year. She has won 15 of her last 16 matches as she lifted the Canadian Open trophy and finished runner-up to Sabalenka in Cincinnati.
It is rich reward for the 30-year-old Pegula who has always been seen as a late bloomer or just “growing at a different pace” as she herself stated in 2023.
“I would say I’m kind of a little bit of a late bloomer, but I think nowadays we are seeing players play much later into their careers, so hopefully that will change,” she said. “Maybe it won’t be so much ‘late bloomer,’ maybe it’s just the game everyone is kind of growing at a different pace.”
Her parents have no doubt been key to helping her to grow at her own pace.
Who Are Terry and Kim Pegula?
Terry Pegula hails from Pennsylvania while Kim Pegula [nee Kerr] was born in Seoul, South Korea, and she spent time in an orphanage as a youngster.
Terry, who has a degree in petroleum engineering, is from a coal mining family and he started his gas and oil company East Resources in 1983 after borrowing $7,500 from family and friends. Nearly three decades later he sold most of the company to Royal Dutch Shell for $4.7 billion.
Kim – who was left near a police station before being placed in an orphanage – was adopted by Canadian-born couple Ralph and Marilyn Kerr and grew up in New York.
Terry and Kim met at a restaurant in 1991 and just over two years later they tied the knot. They have three children – Jessica, Kelly and Matthew – while Terry has two children – Laura and Michael – from a previous marriage.
Nearly two decades after they first met, the power couple bought the NHL team the Buffalo Sabres hockey team before they realised their “lifelong dream” in 2014 as they bought the Buffalo Bills after winning a $1.4 billion cash bid.
Kim Pegula then became the first female president of teams in the NHL and NFL.
2N3W09E Terry, left, and Kim Pegula are introduced as the new owners of the Buffalo Bills as they pose for members of the media on the football field at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, N.Y., Friday, Oct. 10, 2014. (AP Photo/Gary Wiepert)
Jessica Pegula’s parents had a strong influence on her sporting career as she told Bills Pod Squad podcast in 2021: “Dad and I are like oil and water on the tennis court — it does not mix well.
“But he definitely always pushed me to do better. To work hard, always work hard, you can always outwork somebody, all that type of stuff. He’s very old school.”
She added of her mother: “You were the more off-court, get healthy. Like the diet, the recovery, you know, the training and stuff like that.”
But the family’s life was thrown upside down in 2022 when Kim went into cardiac arrest and was kept alive by her daughter Kelly, who administered CPR.
In a piece “I Want to Talk to You About My Mom” in The Players Tribune, she wrote: “We lived in that hospital for basically two weeks. We took shifts, we brought each other food, we knew all the nurses and doctors, we even knew their schedules.
“We had to force my dad to go home and sleep, but most of the time he didn’t. He would go sit in his car to get away or come to my house. He didn’t want to go back to their house unless my mom was back with him. When they say one day in the hospital equals a week to recover, that is no joke. We were all mentally and physically exhausted.”
Kim recovered and is now is determined to watch all of Jessica’s matches.
“She never watched my matches before, because she got too nervous,” the American player wrote. “Now she watches all of them.”
But Jessica’s paid the ultimate tribute to Kim, but she admits things are different.
“She was the woman behind my dad’s success and my dad would happily admit that. She jumped into this journey with him and learned many lessons along the way, breaking a lot of barriers,” she added.
“She was the shift in culture, positivity, and the heartbeat of many of the employees. She gave everyone so much of her time and effort. She lived it and loved it, and it was felt by everyone she met. Now we come to the realization that all of that is most likely gone. That she won’t be able to be that person anymore.”