Jessica Pegula awkwardly confronted a podcaster who tweeted she was “in tears” following her fourth-round US Open loss to Madison Keys.
The No.3 seed Pegula was thumped 6-1, 6-3 by her countrywoman and 17 seed Keys and rubbed her eye as she left the court.
A member of The Tennis Podcast, BBC Radio commentator David Law, saw the moment and in a now-deleted Tweet said Pegula was in tears. It was quickly picked up by other media.
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But in a press conference later in the day, following her doubles match with Coco Gauff, Pegula saw another member of the show, who was not Law and had no knowledge of the tweet in question, in the room and issued a clarification.
“Someone said I walked off the court in tears – I most definitely was not crying,” she said.
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“I’m pretty sure that was from you guys. I don’t know if you tweeted it exactly, but I definitely wasn’t crying.
“It just sounded really sad. I definitely wasn’t crying – I just got waxed in like an hour. Like, I gotta go play (doubles) in an hour. I was like, OK. Anyway.”
Pegula has had a busy US Open, juggling not only a singles campaign, but also two doubles tilts.
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She has made the quarter-finals with both Gauff in the women’s draw and Austin Krajicek in the mixed.
With Krajicek, she will take on Aussie Ellen Perez and Dutchman Jean-Julien Rojer in the mixed quarters.
She and Gauff will take on Hsieh Su-Wei and Wang Xinyu in the women’s quarters on Thursday.