Jessica Pegula kicked off her 2026 US Open campaign in style yesterday with an impressive first-round win. However, Pegula has been making headlines in New York City for more than a week. Yes, her adidas kit went viral on Tennis Twitter. But she’s doing more than serving style to grow the game.
Pegula has partnered with IBM to highlight the exciting new AI-powered fan features coming to USOpen.org and the US Open app for this year’s tournament. Three new innovations are designed to help fans: an all-new Live Updates homepage, a new Serve Quality metric, and Key Moments feature.
Sports Illustrated’s Kicks On SI spoke with Pegula about her IBM partnership, favorite parts of the upgraded app, and her most iconic looks from the US Open.
How has your partnership with IBM progressed over the past few years?
Obviously, playing the US Open over lots of years, I’m always seeing all the IBM information that is given throughout the tournament, and it’s nice to actually have a partnership with them this year. I’m sure they have quite a bit of data on all my matches.
But it’s super exciting to be a part of. I know that they’ve been investing a lot in that space as far as technology, AI, and trying to help fans gain more insight. IBM is helping them understand the big changes in matches and provide a lot more information.
What is your favorite part of the new fan features?
I actually think it’s pretty cool that you can ask questions like, how do you pronounce the player’s name? Because sometimes you really don’t know. So it’s kind of a funny thing where you can ask it questions, like, ‘How has this player been playing? What has been their record leading up to the US Open?’ I think those give fans insight into more players that maybe they’re not as familiar with.
How do you think the new Serve Quality metric will grade you?
I hope it’s good. That means a good third quality score. That means I’m serving well, but yeah, it’ll be interesting to see. I know it has a lot of different serve points that it picks up. So I think it’ll just be interesting to see what serves are actually working.
That doesn’t always mean aces and serve speed, technically. There’s so much more than that. It’s kind of how you’re hitting all your different spots on the serve and moving it around, and I think hopefully something I’ve been working on. So I hope they can see a good score.
The Key Moments feature provides important context. Are there any key moments for you this season?
There’s always a handful of them throughout a match. Just off the top of my head, like Cincinnati last week. I had a lot of really tough three-set matches where I felt like there were a ton of key moments. There are moments like that that happen all throughout matches, all the time.
What are your thoughts on this year’s adidas NY Collection? Everyone is raving about your kit.
Yeah, I know. I don’t even know if I was supposed to wear that. They gave me a couple of options, and I actually hadn’t tried that option on at all. So, it was funny that I thought it was the most comfortable, and I liked how it looked, so I just went out and wore it for the mix.
Unfortunately, we weren’t out there very long, but people seem to really like my outfit, so, they crushed it this year. I love all the options that they gave us. I think the colors look really great. Even seeing Jakub Mensick and Karolina Muchova win it last night, wearing their matching adidas outfits. It was really nice.
What is your all-time favorite US Open look?
I guess I gotta go with the one that I wore in the final. Not just because I made the final, but I did love that dress. It was really comfortable. Love the purple color. I just thought it was comfortable, flattering, and felt the most like me, but I do really like the one this year as well.
So, I feel like sometimes we always relate our best outfits to our results a little bit. So, too early to say this year is because I don’t know my result, but I did really like the purple dress I wore for the final.
What shoes are you wearing casually off the court this summer?
I rotate a lot of my adidas shoes. I love my Stan Smith shoes. He actually used to coach me a long, long time ago, and I know him very well, so I always like rocking my Stan Smiths. I just think it’s kind of like full circle for me, and I love the shoes, and they come out with all sorts of different designs.
What is one footwear or fashion trend you don’t like right now?
I would say I’m not super into it, which is more of a girl, female fashion trend: the lace look. I don’t love the lace shorts look. It kind of looks like pajamas. I know, I can’t quite get into it. I couldn’t do it. It looks good sometimes, but then, I don’t know, I don’t have the guts to wear it, and I just haven’t fallen into that trend yet.
Last question: If you had a signature shoe, what would it be called?
Oh, that’s a tough one. I guess I would just say, like, JPEG? That’s kind of my nickname.
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