Having previously teamed up on the doubles court, World No6 Jessica Pegula and US compatriot Desirae Krawczyk swapped forehands for fairways as they reunited for a fun evening at Topgolf Dubai ahead of this week\u2019s Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.<\/p>\n
The American duo took part in a precision-based challenge at Dubai\u2019s<\/a> futuristic driving range, combining sport, entertainment, and friendly competition \u2013 all set against the emirate\u2019s striking skyline at Emirates Golf Club.<\/p>\n Reflecting on the experience, No4 seed Pegula welcomed the opportunity to switch off for a while ahead of a demanding tournament week: \u201cIt was really nice to get away from the tennis court and do something totally different.It was a lot of fun, especially being able to do this with Des. She\u2019s a good friend of mine and always up for fun activities. It was enjoyable, a little competitive, and just a great experience overall. The place is really nice and a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n Pegula,a 2024 US Open finalist,said she was surprised by how good her playing partner was givenshe had never lifted a club before.\u201c[Desirae] was driving really well \u2013 I don\u2019t think she\u2019d ever played golf before, but she was better than a lot of people who play all the time. If she actually practised, she\u2019d be very good \u2013 driving like that is hard to do!\u201d<\/p>\n Krawczykhighlighted the balance between preparation and relaxation.\u201cIt\u2019s been great,\u201d she said. \u201cPreparation has been going really well. We\u2019ve had a few good days on the courts and I\u2019m feeling ready to go.I love doing fun activities like this, and Topgolf is so much fun. The view is amazing, and it\u2019s really nice to be here with Jess, unwind a little, and enjoy something different before tournaments.\u201d<\/p>\n Krawczyk opened her doubles campaignalongside Ukraine\u2019s Lyudmyla Kichenok by beating Fanny Stollar and Miyu Kato in straight sets to proceed to the Last 16, while Pegula, partnered in doubles this week with Mexican Giuliana Olmos, beat Tereza Mihalikova and Olivia Nicholls.<\/p>\n In singles, Pegula \u2013 as one of the tournament\u2019s top eight seeds \u2013 received a bye to the second round. This week\u2019s WTA 1000 tournament features 16 of the world\u2019s top 20 women\u2019s players and runs from February 15\u201321 at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium. It is followed by the ATP 500 men\u2019s event from February 23\u201328.<\/p>\n Tickets are on sale now for the 2026 Championships, with prices starting from Dh65. For full details, visit dubaidutyfreetennischampionships.com<\/a> or ticketmaster.ae<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Having previously teamed up on the doubles court, World No6 Jessica Pegula and US compatriot Desirae Krawczyk swapped forehands for fairways as they reunited for a fun evening at Topgolf Dubai ahead of this week\u2019s Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. The American duo took part in a precision-based challenge at Dubai\u2019s futuristic driving range, combining […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":68357,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68356"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68359,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68356\/revisions\/68359"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}