Jessica Pegula’s charge at the US Open has renewed attention on her father Terry Pegula, a self-made billionaire who built an oil empire from a $7,500 loan and now owns two major professional sports franchises.
Pegula, ranked No. 3 in the world, defeated No. 31 Leylah Fernandez on Friday to reach the fourth round, where she faces No. 16 Sorana Cirstea of Romania. A deep run could make her the first American woman to reach the top of the WTA rankings since Serena Williams.
From a $7,500 loan to a $9.3 billion fortune
Terry Pegula grew up in rural northeastern Pennsylvania, the son of a truck driver and coal miner. He studied mathematics at Penn State before switching to petroleum and natural gas engineering, graduating in 1973.
In 1983, he borrowed $7,500 from family and friends to found East Resources, an independent oil and gas exploration company in the Appalachian Basin. Over nearly three decades, he built it into one of the largest privately held oil and gas businesses in the United States, selling the bulk of the company to Royal Dutch Shell for $4.7 billion in 2010. He sold a further $1.75 billion in assets in 2014.
He used that wealth to move into professional sports. He purchased the Buffalo Sabres NHL team for $189 million in 2011, then outbid groups including Jon Bon Jovi and Donald Trump to buy the Buffalo Bills for $1.4 billion in 2014. He and his wife Kim Pegula now have a combined net worth of about $9.3 billion.
Jessica Pegula US Open ambitions shaped by family work ethic
Jessica, 32, has earned over $26 million in tournament prize money and holds brand deals with IBM, Hyatt, and The Farmer’s Dog. She has been open about navigating the perception that her background gave her an easy path.
‘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 told The Times.
By then she had already established herself as a junior player, receiving a wildcard into the US Open doubles draw in 2011 at the age of 17.
She traces her drive directly to her father’s upbringing. ‘My dad is super blue-collar,’ she said. ‘He grew up with nothing and built his way up, and that mindset was instilled in my family from a young age.’
She told Forbes in 2023: ‘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. It’s really difficult.’
The two players ranked above her, No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and No. 2 Elena Rybakina, are 28 and 27 respectively and have both won multiple Grand Slam titles. Pegula, still chasing her first major, next faces Cirstea in round four.
