For Madison Keys & Jessica Pegula The Real Power Is In The Fit | The Huddle w/ TJ Maxx

Tennis should be fun. And I wish that you watch reality TV because there's... You wouldn't get it. I know, I didn't get it. You don't get it at all. Tennis should be fun. What was your journey to choosing tennis as your sport? I chose tennis because my older sister played tennis. There was courts kind of like close to our house so she would always be practicing with her team. And I just remember always being like, wow, my older sister's so good. I'm never gonna be as good as her. And then now looking back, it was like high school tennis. In like Pennsylvania. Have you gone out and played against your older sister to prove that you've surpassed her tennis level? No, I don't know if we actually ever officially did. But now we do have family tennis rankings that are ongoing. If you get a bunch of cameras together, I would watch that. Highly entertaining. I could produce that reality TV show. Because you are the reality TV queen. I'm trying to drag you into reality TV. Sometimes you come willingly and other times you come kicking and screaming. But I actually started playing tennis because of a tennis dress that I saw on TV. And I declared as a four-year-old that I wanted the tennis dress. My mom bargained with me and said, if you play the sport, I'll buy you outfits for it. She kind of just thought that I would forget about it and move on. And it was weeks later and I was like, where's my tennis dress? Like, where is it? Where's my outfit? My grandpa's a huge baseball fan. So I started playing tennis as if I was trying to hit home runs. Wait, what did I say? Which I feel like makes so much sense. Makes so much sense. So I would literally... Maddie hits the ball very hard. I always say that. Like people talk about other players and I'm like, no, nobody hits the ball bigger than Madison Keys. I've definitely evolved a lot more as a person and a player since I first started on tour. It's not like it was horribly unprofessional. Like I still worked really hard, but I just don't think I knew like what it took. I don't know if I was really doing everything to not get injured or to come back from an injury like the proper way. I think I was maybe 22 or 23 when I shifted. So I had like a knee surgery and a hip surgery almost like back to back. I was like, I cannot do rehab again. I did everything I could to be healthy. And I came back such a better tennis player. I think once like my maturity kind of came, I was like, I know what I'm doing. Like I can figure it out. And if I don't, like who cares? It's my decision anyways. It's my career, it's my life. And I think that's just really helped me to be a stable top player for the last few years. It's so funny because I think I'm the exact opposite. I took my career so seriously and I became kind of a tennis robot. And I had no other outside life perspective happening. I kind of always just thought that I would live life when I was done with tennis. And then I was getting older and older. I kind of just woke up one day and just thought to myself, life is happening right now. I want to keep playing, but I don't want to just keep putting all of these other things that I want to do in life on the back burner. That was really when I kind of started shifting into, I mean, the smallest things of literally going out to dinner. I used to order in so often, which is crazy. How long ago was that? In tennis years. You're like. Tennis years or dog years? My mid twenties. So once I finally started having that shift, it made my time on court way more enjoyable. There's definitely stories where people were unhappy when they were still successful and they look back and they're like, why did I do that to myself? Like, that wasn't fun. Tennis should be fun. And I wish that you watched reality TV because there's. You wouldn't get it. I know, I didn't get it. You don't get it at all. Tennis should be fun. If you are a casual tennis fan, you see the scripted outfits that each athlete is in. But I think if you're way more into it, like we are, I think you would see how, even if we're all in the exact same outfit, it looks different on all of us in different ways. Some of the girls are, you know, cropping it. Other people accessorize more. I'm obviously a jewelry girl, so. Accessorizing is one of the easiest ways to personalize an outfit. Real beauty comes with how you actually put it together and how you make it feel like you. And I think nowadays we're seeing way more fashion in our walkouts onto the court. I think it's really fun. And I think the great thing about fashion is that like you can do whatever you want. How do you keep your drive and your focus tournament after tournament, city after city? The year is so long. And then the off season is so short. So really it's just like one continuous thing. Like, I don't even know if we have separate years or seasons. We don't. It's what makes our sport so hard. And also rewarding at the same time because you can always turn it around the next week. I think we're really good at like gaslighting ourselves where it's like next week is my week. I think it's also making sure that you're comparing yourself to yourself instead of other people. You can get so lost in what everyone else is doing. There's also so many other very good tennis players that if you're constantly comparing yourself to everyone, you would never feel like you're getting anywhere. I think always challenging myself as a player, taking more days off actually, but just looking at like the small things like, oh, did I serve better this week? Or, oh, that thing we worked on in practice, even though I lost the match, I'd be like, oh no, but like I was actually doing that so much better. Like I feel good about this. That is at its core the most important thing. You can't lose who you are as a tennis player. Like when I'm out on a tennis court, I want to be comfortable and I want to feel confident in what I'm in and that's where I feel like you kind of get that from the outfit. I feel like I probably take a really long time curating all of my looks. Sometimes I get a little superstitious and I'm like, wow, I lost first round three tournaments in a row. This is all coming off. We're starting fresh, we're starting new. I need some new karma in my life. But isn't it crazy how, because I feel like I do the same thing. I'm like, I need to mix this up. Like I need a new look, but it feels like it helps you reset mentally. I would describe my style, ooh. I've always had like the laid back, kind of more like bohemian kind of look, which fits my personality. But I think to maybe like my little alter ego, I still do like comfy, fitted, movable kind of outfits. I would describe my style as comfy, casual. I'm going to wear what I want to wear, kind of no matter what. It kind of shows just the fact that I've quite literally had the exact same hat year after year, after year, after year. Nobody else wears it. No one else wears it. I really love basics. And then I like accessorizing on top of them, whether it's shoes or a jacket or sunglasses. It's like funny how we gravitate towards different things within our style, which I think speaks to our personality. One of the major crossovers within women's sports and TJ Maxx is you can create so many different beautiful things and you can show your personality. TJ Maxx, just like growing women athletes, like throughout different types of sports, letting us showcase our individuality. I mean, it goes back to your story as a kid. Like that's how you got into sport was like looking at what someone was wearing. I think fashion is for everyone and fashion is kind of for every moment.