TORONTO -- Perspective is an important thing for any professional athlete, but gaining it can be a painful process. Just ask World No.6 Jessica Pegula. After three remarkably consistent seasons at the top of the Hologic WTA Tour, Pegula knew a dip was inevitable. 

Toronto: Scores | Draws | Order of Play 

"I saw a stat that I've made the semis of either Toronto and Montreal since 2021," Pegula told reporters before the National Bank Open. "Sometimes you don't realize it, but you're like, 'God, I was playing really well.' In the moment, you're not really thinking about that, but now that I've had a tougher year and I look back, I'm like, 'Wow. I was good. I won a lot of matches.'

"Not that I still don't think I'm good, but I just mean the consistency week in and week out was pretty crazy. I can't believe I did any of that, looking back."

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Her 2024 season was marred by ill-timed injuries, which forced her to skip the fertile ground at four WTA 1000 events, as well as Roland Garros. A coaching change in February introduced more variables, as she split with longtime coach David Witt and brought on the two-man team of Mark Knowles and Mark Merklein. 

While her ranking has dropped just two spots since the start of the year, the 30-year-old now enters the part of the season in which she's defending over 3,000 ranking points. Last summer, Pegula won the WTA 1000 in Montreal, the WTA 250 in Seoul, and she finished runner-up at the WTA Finals. 

Pegula kicked off her Canadian title defense on Wednesday night with a 7-5, 6-4 win over Karolina Pliskova in the second round of Toronto. Pegula tempered expectations before the tournament, but acknowledged her surge in confidence and comfort now that the tour has returned to hard courts. 

Like four-time major champion Naomi Osaka, Pegula feels at home on the concrete but this year, the American will have to play herself into form. After representing the United States at the Paris 2024 Olympics on clay last week, she's spent only a few days reacclimating to hard-court tennis.

"It's nice to just feel the ground," Pegula said. "That's why I think hard court is still my favorite surface because I just love that it's a true bounce. There's no unlucky bounces, weird shots, unlucky stuff. I feel like it's very true to how someone's playing and that's what I always enjoyed about the hard courts. 

"So I definitely got that feeling hitting for the first time."

In Pliskova, Pegula faced down a player who was very much a part of her initial rise up the rankings in 2021. Pegula started that season ranked outside the Top 60, but began to string strong results together as the year went on. Pegula and Pliskova clashed five times in 2021, with Pegula winning the first four meetings.

Facing the Czech for the first time since then, Pegula came back from an early break in the first set to outsteady Pliskova from the baseline. She finished with 22 winners and 19 unforced errors and improved to 5-1 over Pliskova. Pegula now holds a 13-2 record at the Canadian Open. 

It was a performance this should set Pegula up well for her next match against either Diana Shnaider or Magdalena French in the third round. 

"I've had a lot of tough years early on in my career that weren't very good, and I was able to turn that around," Pegula said. "So I think I'm just taking it as, this is a year that's presenting different challenges, and it hasn't been the smoothest first eight months. But, I'm still hopeful coming into the hard courts, for the rest of the year, that I can turn that around because I know that's where, most of my results tend to lie. 

"I like playing on the hard courts, so hopefully I can just keep competing every single match and pick up some momentum and hopefully use some of that going into the end of the year and, hopefully, end it a little bit better than it started."