Jessica Pegula called it the best grass-court swing of her career, reaching the Berlin Open final before a quarterfinal exit at Wimbledon, where she took the first set off Coco Gauff before losing 4-6, 6-3, 6-3. Now headlining the Mubadala DC Open as the world No. 3, Pegula has admitted she almost didn’t play the event at all.

“I didn’t have a lot of prep,” Pegula shared in her DC Open press conference. “I was traveling a lot and had a lot of other work stuff to do that wasn’t just on the court, a lot of off-court stuff, and a lot of commitments that I had set up,” Pegula added.

Her time since Wimbledon had already played out publicly on social media. After a short break at home, she was quickly back on the road, this time for a run of tennis weddings. She first traveled to New York for Tommy Paul’s wedding to Paige Lorenze, joined by Taylor Fritz, Frances Tiafoe, and other players, with her husband, Taylor Gahagen, making a rare public appearance of his own.

From there, the 18-time WTA trophy winner headed to Vancouver for Asia Muhammad’s wedding to James Cross, alongside fellow WTA stars Desirae Krawczyk and Jennifer Brady.

Now back in the capital to open her hard-court swing, another familiar test awaits before the road to the US Open really begins.

Jessica Pegula could face Madison Keys in the DC Open semis

With a first-round bye in hand, Pegula gets a little extra time to sharpen her game before opening against either 28-year-old Magdalena Fręch of Poland or American Ann Li.

The top seed is chasing her second DC Open title, as she first lifted the trophy in 2019 after defeating Camila Giorgi in the final.

Before she’d even reach that stage again, though, she could run into a familiar rival in the semifinals. Pegula and Madison Keys, co-hosts together on the Player’s Box Podcast, are projected to meet for another chapter of that rivalry. The two have already played twice this season, at the Australian Open and in Berlin, with Pegula winning both. She now leads their head-to-head 3-2, though another meeting with the former Australian Open champion would likely be tight regardless of the record.

Pegula’s next stop is her opening match against the Fręch-Li winner, the first real test of whether a wedding-filled break left her sharp enough to defend that convenient scheduling decision.