Jimmy Connors on Gauff and Pegula's poor display at WTA Finals: "If you are tired don't play"

Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula produced very lacklustre efforts at the WTA Finals with both citing fatigue as a cause.

To be fair Gauff and Pegula had a long season and they both played singles and doubles which certainly did not help their fatigue but sharp-tongued Jimmy Connors did not shy away when discussing it. The American legend who has a reputation of a player that never gave up and tried as hard as anybody ever (according to McEnroe), said they could have just not played if they were tired:

"If you're gonna play, be ready to play and go and play. Don't say you're tired, because if you are tired, then don't play. These kids have so many people around and they should know that's what they pay them for, to do the best."

Connors said it during his talk with his son Brett on their podcast adding:

"It's like I told Andy when we had this chat. I said, 'I never told you one thing that was gonna hurt you. Everything that I was telling you was for your benefit, and I wanted you to win just as much as you wanted to win.' That's the way all the people around either it's Coco Gauff or Jessica Pegula or whoever has to look at it. Tennis is a 24×7, 365 days a year job and if you're not willing to do that, take what you get."