American tennis star Jessica Pegula was on the wrong end of another major upset on Tuesday after suffering a shock first-round defeat against Italy’s Elisabetta Cocciaretto at Wimbledon.
The current world No 3, who was also sent packing at the French Open by world No 361 Lois Boisson last month, was beaten 6-2, 6-3 by the unseeded 24-year-old in less than an hour to continue her miserable 2025 at Grand Slams.
After making it to her first ever final at the US Open last year, Pegula, 31, was dumped out of the curtain-raising Australian Open in the third round, before slumping to defeat against Boisson in the fourth round of the French.
The surprise loss to Cocciaretto, who had never beaten a player ranked inside the top five before today, marks the nadir after her SW19 hopes went up in smoke in the very first round.
It also goes down as her worst Grand Slam showing for five years, since she was eliminated in the first round at the French Open in 2020.
She came into the All England Club having won the grass-court Bad Homburg Open in Germany over the weekend when she beat Iga Swiatek in straight sets.
Yet Pegula, who is the daughter of billionaire NFL owner Terry Pegula, will now go back to the drawing board and look to get back in form ahead of the US Open, which gets underway at the end of August.
The New Yorker made it to her first ever final in 2024, where she suffered a straight-sets loss to then-world No 2 Aryna Sabalenka.
Jessica Pegula crashed out of Wimbledon in the first round after a shock defeat on Tuesday
The daughter of billionaire NFL owner Terry Pegula is having a miserable 2025 at Grand Slams
