World’s richest tennis star Jessica Peluga ‘too afraid to eat’ in Paris

Jessica Pegula has admitted that she has been too scared to eat out in Paris during the French Open after falling ill on her first night in the city last month. The 29-year-old, who is said to be the world’s richest tennis player as the daughter of multi-billionaires Terry and Kim Pegula, is hoping to win her first Grand Slam title at Roland Garros this year after breezing through the opening two rounds.

Pegula is currently ranked as the world’s third-best female singles player and is widely considered as one of the leading contenders to claim the honours at the French Open, although she has revealed that her campaign got off to the worst possible start when she picked up a stomach bug after eating at a restaurant with friends upon her arrival in Paris.

“Coming into this week’s French Open, my preparations were completely thrown by getting food poisoning on my first night and first dinner in Paris,” wrote Pegula in her BBC Sport column.

“What horrendous luck. I haven’t gone out to a restaurant since because I’ve been too afraid to eat there. I don’t know exactly what did the damage. I had escargots, I love escargots, but everyone else in my group had them. I also had salmon so maybe it was a bad piece of fish.

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“I was throwing up for the whole night and I couldn’t sleep much. That was after I arrived in Paris on Tuesday, I didn’t practice on Wednesday, I practiced on Thursday but it was not pretty, I could barely do anything. I was getting a lot of nausea and acid reflux, I wasn’t eating. I was afraid to eat anything. I didn’t have an appetite.”

Pegula did not allow her illness to wreak havoc on her pre-tournament preparations, though, with the 29-year-old having since won both of her opening matches against Danielle Collins and Camila Giorgi without dropping a single set. She went on to explain that her victory over Collins helped to ease her nerves before she managed to catch up on some much-needed sleep ahead of her second-round triumph over Giorgi.

“The good thing was I felt I was playing OK, but just not feeling physically good,” added Pegula. “Still, I didn’t feel happy or prepared. I had to try and turn it into a positive, which was by really focusing on me. I was like ‘right, I need to get through this match’ because I knew I had two days off after to recover.

“That was my motivation: to walk in, get through, be super focused and hope for the best. Actually I played a decent match against Danielle, who is someone I know well and is a great player. Luckily I came around by the weekend, caught up on sleep and got some good practice in. Now I’m feeling a lot better and ready to go.”

It remains to be seen whether Pegula will be able to clinch her maiden Grand Slam title by winning the French Open this year as she looks to improve on her run to the final at Roland Garros last time around. She reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open back in January and will be desperate to put her positive momentum to good use in her bid to claim her first piece of major silverware over the next few weeks.

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