A few weeks shy of her 30th birthday, Jessica Pegula felt like she needed to make a change. She was the No. 4 player in the world — she’s still No. 5 in the WTA rankings — and yet she was again reeling from an early exit at a Grand Slam tournament. Her window to finally break through and win a major is going to close eventually and Pegula decided she needed to try something new.

A few weeks after her second-round exit from the 2024 Australian Open, Pegula fired longtime coach David Witt and replaced him with Mark Knowles and Mark Merklein, neither of whom had ever coached in the Women’s Tennis Association before.

Pegula, who has never advanced past the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tourney despite spending most of the past three years ranked in the top five, is trying to finally break through behind bold decision-making.

“I haven’t really switched that many coaches throughout my career,” Pegula said. “It’s just trying to understand what my mentality is and how they think they can help me in my game.”

On Saturday at the 2024 Miami Open, Pegula scored her first win with the new coaching duo in her ear, advancing to the Round of 32 on the grounds of Hard Rock Stadium after Zhu Lin retired late in the second set with Pegula up 6-4, 4-1.

After losing her opening matches at the 2024 San Diego Open in February and 2024 BNP Paribas Open earlier this month, Pegula made progress this weekend with a mostly stress-free win on the grandstand court.

About a month and a half into her relationship with her new coaches, Pegula is still adjusting.

“It’s kind of a relearning curve,” Pegula said. “Obviously, I’m at a different place in my career than I was five years ago (when she last made a coaching change), so that also adds to it, but I think it’s just seeing how they can help me.”

Before the San Diego Open, Pegula went out to Dallas to spend a week with Knowles, getting instruction from one of her new coaches, but also just trying to learn some of his personality and coaching quirks.

The new coaches aren’t trying anything groundbreaking with Pegula. As Pegula describes it, their focus is just on getting her back to basics, which isn’t such a bad idea.

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