Pegula believes Challenger Tour is actually harder than WTA Tour: "Everyone on the Challenger wants to win so bad"

America’s Jessica Pegula has stated that it is harder to compete in the Challengers Tour compared to the WTA Tour tournaments.

The 29-year-old is currently taking part in the US Open where she has already won the first round fixture against Italy’s Camila Giorgi in straight sets with a score of 6-2, 6-2.

Pegula was asked during the press talk about which tour is harder to compete in and she expressed in detail how the Challengers Tour is a real grind for players.

“I honestly think it's harder on the Challengers Tour than when you get to the level here,” she said. “Not that this isn’t hard but to a certain extent when you are on a Challengers Tour, everyone just wants to win so bad and they are trying to get out of there and everything around you seems, I don’t know what it is, plays into it.

“It's like you are on the bad court, the umpire sucks, you are getting bad calls, there is coaching, there is all these things. There are all those things that don’t happen and I think that levels everybody out. It kind of balances everyone out to the same stage because there is like all of this stuff happening.

“You know the rain delays, you don’t have anywhere to go. There is a small clubhouse, there are no practice courts. I think these things even everyone out which makes it really hard. Here, I feel like when you get here, it's not like girls don’t want to play but all it takes is one girl doesn’t want to show up that day, or she is sick or she is tried or she just came off a good result and then someone pulls out and then you win one good match and you are in the third round and then you are like “Ok it's not as hard as you thought it was.”

“Not saying this happens every time as it could be the opposite but I don’t know it's just different. I think it's hard [in the Challenger Tour].”