Their nationalities and tennis prowess are not the only things Emma Navarro and Jessica Pegula have in common.
American tennis stars, each just one win away from securing a spot US Open‘s singles final, there are also daughters of billionaires who have each lost their privilege after entering the international spotlight.
Pegula, 30, is the daughter of Terry Pegula, the founder of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, the NHL’s Buffalo Sabers and the natural gas company, East Resources. It is worth approximately $7.7 billion ForbesHe is ranked 373 in the global net worth ranking.
The younger Pegula was born in Buffalo but lives and trains in sunny South Florida, where she has transformed herself into a prolific tennis star. She is ranked No. 6 in the world and has won $14.3 million in prize cash since turning professional in 2009, becoming a multimillionaire in her own right.
Pegula, whose mother was born in South Korea and is Still recovering from sudden cardiac arrest in 2022, asserted that her upbringing was not as different as many assume.
“People think I have a butler, which is why I walk around,” she said Agence France Presse This week. “[That] I have a private limo, which I fly private everywhere. I certainly am not.”
Pegula said she found the assumptions made about the 73-year-old oil magnate’s daughter “a little disturbing.” She’s certainly gone to great lengths to prove that she’s not above the everyday, recently posting a clip that showed her taking the subway in New York instead of a private car.
“My agent makes fun of me because she doesn’t want a nice car,” Pegula said. “We actually went to Flushing once—it took like an hour and a half in the car and I wanted to throw up.”
Pegula shocked the tennis world earlier this week by upsetting Poland’s No. 1 Iga Switek in straight sets. She will face unseeded Czech Karolina Muchova, a 2023 French Open finalist, on Thursday night with a place in the final on the line.
Navarro, 23, could await Pegula in Saturday’s final, but she will have to overcome a tough test to get there. Her semi-final on Thursday is against Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka – the world No. 2 in women’s singles.
Navarro, widely regarded as a rising star, comes from an avid tennis family. She grew up in South Carolina where her father, Ben Navarro, plunked down his estimated $1.5 billion net worth to buy Charleston Tennis LLC (owners of the Charleston Open) in 2019. He also owns the rights to the Cincinnati Open and founded Sherman. financial group.
Ben Navarro and his wife, Kelly, are often seen courtside at their daughter’s matches. The younger Navarro credits her father for pushing her to become the athlete she is today.
“I want to thank my dad who had a vision when I was really young,” she recently told ESPN. “He knew that maybe I was a little ADHD to sit in a classroom or a 9-to-5, and I think he saw something in me from a young age, so thanks, Dad, for sending me on this journey.”
Navarro won the 2021 NCAA Singles Championship while representing the University of Virginia, where her younger sister is now a member of the same team. She led this summer’s US Open after ousting her defending champion, No. 3 seed Coco Goff, in the fourth round. She has won $2.5 million in prize money in her playing career.
Navarro, like Pegula, hasn’t shied away from talking about growing up with plenty of privilege — though she insists that her place in the tennis world is largely due to her work ethic, not her 61-year-old age. Father’s Net Worth
“I had access to resources as a kid, but I don’t want to take away from the fact that I worked really, really hard to be where I am,” she said. “I put in a ton of hours, and started training and going to the gym twice a day since I was eight, nine years old. It’s been a ton of hard work and dedication.”
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