U.S. Open 2024: Jessica Pegula, Emma Navarro prime examples of tennis' 'rich' history
Jessica Pegula returns a shot during a match against Daria Snigur in the fourth round of the U.S. Open on Monday. Credit: AP/Kirsty Wigglesworth
It’s hard not to cheer for Frances Tiafoe.
A first-generation American who learned how to play tennis on the courts where his father was a maintenance worker, Tiafoe is the kind of feel-good story that makes us believe it’s possible for anyone with incredible skills, drive and determination to make it big in a sport with deep patrician roots.
Yet there is another kind of story brewing at the U.S. Open this week, one that is not as publicized. It not only reinforces the cliche that you have to be rich to make it big in tennis but puts that cliche on steroids.
With Emma Navarro having knocked off Coco Gauff on Sunday and Jessica Pegula having beaten Diana Shnaider on Monday, there is a chance that the U.S. Open could make history by becoming the first Grand Slam tournament to have a final matching the daughters of two billionaires.
Navarro, seeded 13th at the Open, is the daughter of Ben Navarro, the founder of Sherman Financial Group and owner of Credit One Bank. Ben Navarro has a net worth of approximately $1.5 billion. Emma Navarro owns two WTA tournament titles, the Charleston and Cincinnati Open.
The No. 6-seeded Pegula is the daughter of Terry Pegula, who initially amassed his fortune by investing in fracking. According to Forbes, he is worth $7.7 billion. Terry is most well-known, along with his wife, Kim, as owner of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres.
Jessica Pegula, 30, has been ranked as high as No. 3. She is 0-6 in Grand Slam quarterfinals in her career but has won 13 of her past 14 matches on hard courts after winning in Toronto and losing the final in Cincinnati.
After Pegula failed to get out of the quarterfinals for the sixth straight time and lost at Wimbledon in 2023, the Times of London ran a story with the headline, “Pegula needs dynamic that family billions can’t buy.” Five days ago, when Pegula posted a video on Instagram of her taking the subway to Queens, many comments asked why she would take public transportation.
Pegula said it is “annoying” that people make assumptions about her because of her family’s wealth.
“People think I have a butler, that I get chauffeured around, [that] I have a private limo, that I fly private everywhere,” Pegula said Monday. “I’m definitely not like that. A butler? Like I read these comments, like she probably has this and that and I’m like ‘No, not at all.’ Maybe I should. I don’t know at this point. Is that what you want me to do? All these crazy things . . . I don’t really know anyone who lives like that. It’s outrageous.”
Navarro, 23, also is trying to win her first major quarterfinal. She beat Gauff at both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open to get to the quarterfinals.
Though she specifically hasn’t talked about the impact her family wealth has had on her rise in tennis, it was clear by comments she made after her win over Gauff on Sunday that she believes she has worked hard and earned her way into the quarterfinals.
“I think I believe that I can play tennis with the best players in the world,” Navarro said. “I deserve to be on this stage, I belong in these rounds of Grand Slams and I can make deep runs.”
The USTA has done an admirable job of making its sport more accessible to players of different incomes. The success of Serena and Venus Williams, who grew up playing on public courts, has done a lot to draw athletes of different backgrounds.
Yet tennis remains an incredibly expensive sport to play, especially if you aspire to get to the level at which you can compete in a Grand Slam tournament. A Bloomberg report estimated that it costs more than $400,000 to chase that tennis dream.
The costs of being a professional, period, are prohibitive given that players are independent contractors who pay their own expenses for everything from coaches to travel. Way back in 2010, the USTA estimated that the annual average cost to be a “highly competitive” professional tennis player was $143,000 and that only the 116 highest-ranked players on the men’s tour would have broken even at such costs.
No one is saying Navarro and Pegula don’t deserve to be where they are: two wins away from playing in a Grand Slam final.
Yet the fact that the two remaining American women in the tournament both come from extreme wealth doesn’t do much to erase tennis’ reputation as a rich person’s sport.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.