Can Jessica Pegula channel Charleston momentum on Madrid’s red clay?

Is a Big 3 finally emerging on the WTA Tour? Jessica Pegula certainly hopes not.

“I think sometimes it can get kind of boring if you see the same players all the time,” she told me straight after winning a second straight Credit One Charleston Open. “The depth right now in the Top 10 is great, and I think we have a really strong Top 5.”

Currently fifth on the WTA rankings, Pegula has been the third best player of the 2026 season, sitting just behind Elena Rybakina and Aryna Sabalenka in the Race to Riyadh thanks to victories in Charleston and the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. At her last nine tournaments, she’s reached the semifinals or better at seven, and the quarterfinals at the other two. Yet even with the Charleston trophy still in her eye line, Pegula preferred to praise about half a dozen rivals—namedropping Victoria Mboko and Elina Svitolina in addition to Rybakina, Sabalenka, Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek—before finally giving herself a perfunctory nod.

“And then there’s me,” she said. “I’ve been playing good tennis.”

In her pre-tournament interview, Pegula joked about being “her own thing” on tour, a cool contrast that’s neither as powerful as Rybakina or Sabalenka nor as reliant on athleticism like Gauff or Swiatek. Her greatest strength has long been a lack of weaknesses, but at 32, Pegula is secure in her identity as a player and believes she’s still improving enough to compete alongside a slew of Grand Slam champions.

“I’ve had to find the balance,” she told me. “I can be very aggressive, and at the same time, I’m very good at being steady. Most players are one way or the other, but I’ve never been a truly defensive or offensive player. I think I’ve had to work on being more aggressive in my own way, which isn’t maybe the same outright power like and Aryna or Elena have. I think mine is a more balance approach of taking the ball early, using my footwork, using my hands and my timing to do that. Then obviously, I’ve used my serve to make it more of a weapon against those girls. That has really helped to set up the next couple shots so I’m not on the defense as much.

“It’s been more about emphasizing things that I already do really well and make them a little bit better.”

“I’ve taken a lot of things that I’ve seen players like to do to me, and it makes me less predictable in my pattern...I’ll think about the opposite side of the net and anticipating what players think I’m going to, and then do the opposite! That sounds simple, but it helps. Jessica Pegula

Pegula has also learned a lack of weaknesses has its perks, inspiring a late-career openness to improvisation.

“I’ve taken a lot of things that I’ve seen players like to do to me, and it makes me less predictable in my pattern,” she said. “It’s not even something I’m thinking about, but something I’ve been able to naturally do.

“I’ll think about the opposite side of the net and anticipating what players think I’m going to, and then do the opposite! That sounds simple, but it helps.”

The American’s 2026 entrée to clay was a veritable baptism by fire against a cadre of dirtballers, most of whom put Pegula on the brink of defeat. Her final match ended up being the easiest of all, a 6-2, 6-2 victory over the tournament’s Cinderella story, Yuliia Starodubtseva.

“It’s actually nice that I played much better today because I think I have a bit more confidence. In the other matches, I wasn’t feeling my best or playing my best tennis, so I think I’m going to build off what I can do better,” she told me. “Today at least shows I’m able to do some of the things better that I’d been doing in the previous matches this week. I’ll take that as positive momentum moving forward into my training.”

With three weeks of rest, Pegula was optimistic she could translate her green-clay success to the Mutua Madrid Open, where she made the final back in 2022.

“I’ll be at altitude and the courts will play kind of fast,” she told me. “I’ve had good results there before, so I think it’s somewhere I can do well because it’s a little faster. I’ll just have to prepare and hopefully take some confidence from these matches I just won. I’ve been able to change and adapt when I need to.”

Rather than a lack of weakness, it’s Pegula’s adaptability that may actually be her greatest strength—and what may cement this burgeoning trio at the top of the women’s game.