LONDON (AP) — Third-ranked Jessica Pegula thought she was done with first-round hiccups.
Then she faced Elisabetta Cocciaretto, who needed just 58 minutes to stun the American 6-2, 6-3 at Wimbledon on Tuesday.
It was the third-seeded Pegula's earliest exit at a Grand Slam tournament in five years.
And it came days after Pegula won the the grass-court Bad Homburg Open in Germany on Saturday, beating Iga Swiatek in straight sets.
“This is definitely probably the worst result I’ve had all year," she said.
Pegula, a quarterfinalist at Wimbledon in 2023, hit only five winners and made 24 unforced errors.
“For this to happen today, it’s disappointing. I don’t know how else to put it,” she said. “I’m upset that I wasn’t able to turn anything around. But at the same time, I do feel like she played kind of insane. Hats off to her. Kudos to her for playing at a high level that I couldn’t match it today.”
Six of Pegula's first seven appearances at majors ended in the first round — the last of those being at the French Open in 2020 when she was beaten by Aryna Sabalenka.
She said she was able to “flip that mentality” to push into the second week of major tournaments — her best result being runner-up to Sabalenka at the U.S. Open last year.
Pegula couldn't slow down Cocciaretto, though, as the Italian didn't face a break point on her serve.
The 24-year-old Cocciaretto missed Wimbledon last year because she had pneumonia.
“I went to the hospital, and I was sick until the Olympic Games,” she said, adding that she later picked up a stomach virus that sidelined her for two months.
“I’m really grateful that now I can play, that now I’m in this big tournament, big stage. So yeah, I’m just enjoying it," Cocciaretto said.
Pegula's only other first-round loss at the All England Club was in her debut in 2019.
She has reached five singles finals this year — second only to top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka’s seven.
Her pursuit of her first Grand Slam title moves to Flushing Meadows in August.
“Bonus is I can go prep for the hard courts,” Pegula said, “which seems to be my favorite surface anyways, and see if I can just make some more magic this summer, I guess.”
AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
Elisabetta Cocciaretto of Italy gets up after falling during her women's first round singles match against Jessica Pegula of the U.S. at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Tuesday, July 1, 2025.(AP Photo/Joanna Chan)
Elisabetta Cocciaretto of Italy gets up after falling during her women's first round singles match against Jessica Pegula of the U.S. at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Tuesday, July 1, 2025.(AP Photo/Joanna Chan)
Jessica Pegula of the U.S. returns the ball to Elisabetta Cocciaretto of Italy during their women's first round singles match at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Tuesday, July 1, 2025.(AP Photo/Joanna Chan)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after the audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela, President Donald Trump on Sunday renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”
The comments from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the ouster of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro underscore that the U.S. administration is serious about taking a more expansive role in the Western Hemisphere.
With thinly veiled threats, Trump is rattling hemispheric friends and foes alike, spurring a pointed question around the globe: Who's next?
“It’s so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place," Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. "We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”
Asked during an interview with The Atlantic earlier on Sunday what the U.S.-military action in Venezuela could portend for Greenland, Trump replied: “They are going to have to view it themselves. I really don’t know.”
Trump, in his administration's National Security Strategy published last month, laid out restoring “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” as a central guidepost for his second go-around in the White House.
Trump has also pointed to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which rejects European colonialism, as well as the Roosevelt Corollary — a justification invoked by the U.S. in supporting Panama’s secession from Colombia, which helped secure the Panama Canal Zone for the U.S. — as he's made his case for an assertive approach to American neighbors and beyond.
Trump has even quipped that some now refer to the fifth U.S. president's foundational document as the “Don-roe Doctrine.”
Saturday's dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas and Trump’s comments on Sunday heightened concerns in Denmark, which has jurisdiction over the vast mineral-rich island of Greenland.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a statement that Trump has "no right to annex" the territory. She also reminded Trump that Denmark already provides the United States, a fellow member of NATO, broad access to Greenland through existing security agreements.
“I would therefore strongly urge the U.S. to stop threatening a historically close ally and another country and people who have made it very clear that they are not for sale,” Frederiksen said.
Denmark on Sunday also signed onto a European Union statement underscoring that “the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their future must be respected” as Trump has vowed to “run” Venezuela and pressed the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, to get in line.
Trump on Sunday mocked Denmark’s efforts at boosting Greenland’s national security posture, saying the Danes have added “one more dog sled” to the Arctic territory’s arsenal.
Greenlanders and Danes were further rankled by a social media post following the raid by a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, Katie Miller. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the caption: “SOON."
“And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Amb. Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark's chief envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, who is married to Trump's influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
During his presidential transition and in the early months of his return to the White House, Trump repeatedly called for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has pointedly not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island that belongs to an ally.
The issue had largely drifted out of the headlines in recent months. Then Trump put the spotlight back on Greenland less than two weeks ago when he said he would appoint Republican Gov. Jeff Landry as his special envoy to Greenland.
The Louisiana governor said in his volunteer position he would help Trump “make Greenland a part of the U.S.”
Meanwhile, concern simmered in Cuba, one of Venezuela’s most important allies and trading partners, as Rubio issued a new stern warning to the Cuban government. U.S.-Cuba relations have been hostile since the 1959 Cuban revolution.
Rubio, in an appearance on NBC's “Meet the Press,” said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela ahead of his capture.
“It was Cubans that guarded Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards.” The secretary of state added that Cuban bodyguards were also in charge of “internal intelligence” in Maduro’s government, including “who spies on who inside, to make sure there are no traitors.”
Trump said that “a lot” of Cuban guards tasked with protecting Maduro were killed in the operation. The Cuban government said in a statement read on state television on Sunday evening that 32 officers were killed in the U.S. military operation.
Trump also said that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, is in tatters and will slide further now with the ouster of Maduro, who provided the Caribbean island subsidized oil.
“It's going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It's going down for the count.”
Cuban authorities called a rally in support of Venezuela’s government and railed against the U.S. military operation, writing in a statement: “All the nations of the region must remain alert, because the threat hangs over all of us.”
Rubio, a former Florida senator and son of Cuban immigrants, has long maintained Cuba is a dictatorship repressing its people.
“This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live — and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States," Rubio said.
Cubans like 55-year-old biochemical laboratory worker Bárbara Rodríguez were following developments in Venezuela. She said she worried about what she described as an “aggression against a sovereign state.”
“It can happen in any country, it can happen right here. We have always been in the crosshairs,” Rodríguez said.
AP writers Andrea Rodriguez in Havana, Cuba, and Darlene Superville traveling aboard Air Force One contributed reporting.
In this photo released by the White House, President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Molly Riley/The White House via AP)
