Jessica Pegula may be a star in the world of tennis, but she is far from the only sports-loving member of her family.

The 30-year-old athlete, who will face Aryna Sabalenka in the US Open final on September 7, is the daughter of Terry and Kim Pegula, a billionaire couple who own several professional sports teams, including the Buffalo Bills.

However, her parents’ enormous wealth does not mean that Jessica Pegula snacks on caviar between performances.

The Buffalo native, ranked sixth in the world, laughed off “outrageous” rumors that she travels to her matches in a limousine at a press conference earlier this week.

“People think I have a butler, get chauffeured around, have a private limousine and fly everywhere privately,” she said with a laugh, adding, “I’m definitely not like that.”

Just this week, Forbes estimated that Terry Pegula, who made his money from his oil and gas company East Resources, has a net worth of $7.7 billion.

But the self-made billionaire and his wife know what it means to come from humble beginnings.

Terry Pegula comes from a family of miners in Pennsylvania and Kim Pegula, who was born in Seoul, South Korea, spent time in an orphanage as a child.

Read on to learn more about Terry and Kim Pegula.

Terry Pegula built his fortune with his gas and oil business

According to the New York Times, Terry Pegula was born into a mining family in Carbondale, Pennsylvania.

He graduated from Penn State University with a degree in petroleum engineering in 1973 and began his career as an employee of Getty Oil Co. in Victoria, Texas, according to a biography on the NFL website.

He borrowed $7,500 from family and friends to buy land in the Marcellus Shale, a rock formation that stretches between West Virginia and New York. From there, he founded his gas and oil company, East Resources, according to the Ocala Star Banner.

In 2010, he sold most of the company to Royal Dutch Shell for $4.7 billion, according to Forbes.

The couple owns the Buffalo Bills and other sports teams

According to Buffalo Bill’s website, Terry and Kim Pegula purchased the Buffalo Sabres hockey team in 2011. The couple also purchased the NLL Buffalo Bandits and Rochester Knighthawks, as well as the AHL Rochester Americans.

Three years later, the couple fulfilled a “lifelong dream” by purchasing the Buffalo Bills.

The deal made Kim Pegula the first female president of both an NHL and NFL team.

Kim Pegula spent some time in an orphanage before she was adopted as a child

Although she is one of the most powerful women in the NFL today, Kim Pegula’s life hasn’t always been so glamorous.

According to her biography on the Buffalo Bills website, she was born in Seoul, South Korea and spent time in an orphanage before being adopted by American parents at the age of five.

She graduated from Houghton College in 1991 with a degree in communications and worked as a hostess at McDonalds before starting her professional career at her future husband’s company.

The couple met in a restaurant in 1991

Kim Pegula told the Democrat & Chronicle that she and Terry Pegula met in a restaurant in 1991.

Kim Pegula recalled that after graduating from college in 1991, she and her college roommate planned to travel to Alaska to work at a fishing camp, but fate intervened.

To save up for the trip, the two friends filled out applications for jobs at the Old Library Restaurant in Olean, New York.

Terry Pegula and several of his co-workers from East Resources happened to be at the restaurant having lunch the day the two women arrived. He and his future wife struck up a conversation and exchanged contact information.

Weeks later, the two had their first date. And then another, and another. Finally, Terry Pegula mentioned a job opening at his company. “He said, ‘Hey, I could use someone at East,’ but I think he made that up,” Kim Pegula told the publication with a laugh.

“He said, ‘I’m in investor relations and if you have communications skills, if that’s your background, I’m not very good at that. I just know how to drill oil and gas, so maybe you can do that.’

“I said, ‘OK, I’ll do this now and wait until I hear about the other job.’ And at some point I thought, ‘Hmm, maybe I don’t want the other job after all.'”

After a year of dating, Terry Pegula asked Kim Pegula’s parents for permission to marry her. Kim Pegula told the Democrat & Chronicle about her parents’ concerns — particularly that Terry Pegula was 18 years older than her, divorced, and had two children from his first marriage.

“Of course they gave me a speech, one about the relationship with the boss, one about the age difference, divorce, stepchildren, all the things that as a parent you don’t want to put your child through if you don’t have to,” Kim said. “After they expressed their opinion, I said, ‘OK, I understand,’ but it didn’t matter. After that they didn’t say another word about it.”

They are parents of five children

Terry and Kim Pegula have five children together: Michael, Laura, Jessica, Kelly and Matthew, according to the couple’s biographies on the NFL website.

Jessica Pegula says her parents helped her succeed as an athlete

In September 2021, Jessica Pegula appeared on the podcast “Bills Pod Squad” with her mother, where she attributed her athletic success in part to her parents.

“Dad and I are like oil and water on the tennis court – we don’t mix well,” she said, laughing. “But he definitely always pushed me to be better. Work hard, always work hard, you can always do more than someone else, all that stuff. He’s very old-fashioned.”

She added that her mother has been helping her stay fit behind the scenes.

“Off the pitch, people were more concerned with getting healthy. In terms of nutrition, recovery, training and things like that.”

Kim Pegula suffered a cardiac arrest in 2022

Kim Pegula suffered a cardiac arrest in June 2022, shortly after Jessica Pegula competed in the French Open.

In February 2023, the tennis pro wrote about the incident in a personal essay in The Players Tribune. She stated that the incident occurred while her mother was sleeping. Fortunately, her sister Kelly was staying with her parents. Kelly performed CPR on her mother to keep her alive before paramedics arrived.

At the time, Jessica Pegula said her mother was “getting better every day,” but she was struggling with “severe expressive aphasia and significant memory problems.”

“She can read, write and understand quite well, but she has a hard time finding the right words to answer,” said the athlete, revealing that since the incident, her mother has started watching her games on television, whereas before she was too nervous to tune in.

In June 2023, Jessica Pegula told the New York Times that she believed her focus on her game was helping her mother recover.

“She wants to see me on TV,” the pro said. “I think it inspires her as she recovers to see me still out there playing.”

“She wouldn’t want me to do anything else,” she added later. “I think she would want me to keep winning, keep competing and keep pushing.”