Jessica Pegula has a chance to make history at this year’s U.S. Open tennis tournament. Currently No. 3 in the world, Pegula is riding a career high and facing down her greatest opportunity yet to win her first major. A deep run could also make her the first American woman to reach the top spot in the WTA rankings since Serena Williams over a decade ago.
Pegula, 32, has already built an impressive career on and off the court, earning over $26 million in tournament prize money while securing brand deals with companies including IBM, Hyatt, and The Farmer’s Dog. But there’s another part of her story that has long followed her around: her family’s extraordinary wealth.
Her father, Terry Pegula, built a fortune in the oil and gas industry before turning much of his attention—and billions of dollars—toward professional sports. He sold the bulk of his company, East Resources, to Royal Dutch Shell for $4.7 billion in 2010. The following year, he purchased Buffalo, New York’s NHL team, the Buffalo Sabres, for $189 million, and in 2014, he outbid groups including Jon Bon Jovi and Donald Trump to purchase the NFL’s Buffalo Bills for $1.4 billion. Today, he and his wife Kim Pegula have a combined net worth of about $9.3 billion.
For Jessica, however, her father’s fortune is something she has tried not to let define her career as a professional athlete.
“I’ve always tried to carry myself as just a normal person because that’s to me how I am,” Jessica told The Times earlier this year. “I’m definitely aware that I was very privileged and had a lot of good opportunities, and I didn’t want to waste those.”
Terry Pegula turned a $7,500 loan into an oil empire—and his daughter has shared his passion for hard work
Terry grew up in rural northeastern Pennsylvania, with his father working as a truck driver and coal miner. Terry initially studied mathematics at Penn State University before transferring to the school’s Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering program. He graduated in 1973.
After college, he moved to Texas to work for Getty Oil Company but later returned to the Rust Belt. In 1983, he borrowed $7,500 from family and friends to launch East Resources, an independent oil and gas exploration and production company operating in the Appalachian Basin.
Over nearly three decades, Terry Pegula built the company into one of the largest privately held oil and gas businesses in the U.S., eventually selling the bulk of East Resources to Royal Dutch Shell for $4.7 billion in 2010. He sold another $1.75 billion in assets in 2014.
For Jessica, that story of starting with relatively little and building something through persistence has been central to her family’s ethos. She was born in 1994 and began playing tennis at age seven, but she has said her family didn’t become wealthy until she was a teenager.
“My dad is super blue-collar,” Jessica said to The Times. “He grew up with nothing and built his way up, and that mindset was instilled in my family from a young age.”
“Some people get this image that it’s really easy for me because my dad is very wealthy, but that didn’t happen till I was 17 or 18,” she added.
By then, Jessica had already established herself as a promising young tennis player. At 17, she received a wildcard into the main draw of the U.S. Open doubles tournament in 2011. Four years later, she made her singles debut.
But Jessica’s rise to the top of the sport has been gradual. Now 32, she has been described as a “late bloomer” by tennis standards. The two players ahead of her in the WTA rankings—No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and No. 2 Elena Rybakina—are 28 and 27, respectively, and have already won multiple Grand Slam titles.
Jessica, meanwhile, is still chasing her first major trophy—and has said her goal has always been to one day reach the No. 1 ranking. However, she said neither her age nor her family’s wealth has changed what it takes to get there.
“Everyone who knows sports, or is an athlete, or is highly competitive, or has made it very far, I think, knows that you’re not really going to get there unless you work hard, are talented, and are really driven to get there,” Jessica said to Forbes in 2023. “It’s really difficult.”
That philosophy echoes advice Terry has given his children throughout their lives: “Work hard, love what you’re doing, and treat people right.”
On Friday, Sept. 4, Jessica defeated No. 31 Leylah Fernandez to advance to round four of the 2026 U.S. Open, where she will face No. 16 Sorana Cirstea of Romania. Fortune reached out to the Pegulas for comment but received no response.
Many of tennis’s biggest stars came from modest beginnings—and built fortunes of their own
Jessica Pegula isn’t the only rising tennis star to come from a high-net-worth family.
Emma Navarro is the No. 26 seed in the U.S. Open—and her father, Ben Navarro, has an estimated net worth of $3.2 billion after a career in finance. Like the Pegula family, Emma has emphasized the role her family’s work ethic played in her own success.
“My family instilled in me the value of hard work, resiliency, and perseverance,” Emma said earlier this year. “My dad always taught us to never give up no matter the circumstances and to always give one hundred percent effort in everything you do.”
Still, there’s no single formula for becoming a successful tennis player. While the sport can be expensive to get into, with high costs for coaching, equipment, and club memberships, some of the sport’s top stars have come from families without enormous fortunes. Many have gone on to build multimillion-dollar fortunes of their own.
Serena and Venus Williams, for example, grew up in a middle-class family in Compton, California, before becoming two of the most successful and recognizable players in tennis history. Serena’s net worth is estimated at $400 million, while Venus has over $50 million to her name built through prize money, endorsements, and investments.
The sisters have often credited their upbringing with shaping their careers.
“I think the main value that [my parents] instilled in me is just humility, and I think that goes way better than any championship or anything, because it keeps you grounded as an individual,” Williams told CNBC. “It keeps you respectful, and it keeps you just like everybody else, because at the end of the day, we’re all the same.”
Novak Djokovic, who has won more Grand Slam singles titles than any other male player, has emphasized the sacrifices his parents made to support his tennis career. As a child, the Serbian star recalled his father telling his family of five that they had just $10 left in their name—a lesson in persistence that stuck with Novak.
“Go forward no matter what, fall hard on your nose, and then stand up and keep going forward and fall again and then bounce back again,” Djokovic said. “And then, you will win.”