Jessica Pegula had a nightmare encounter with United Airlines, but luckily a kind baggage service employee came to her rescue and now she hopes he is given time off work to watch tennis.

Pegula is set to compete at the WTA Finals in Indian Wells at the end of this week so she was presumably travelling to California for the season-ending tournament when a bizarre sequence of events left her without her baggage on Sunday evening in the United States.

In a post on X, the world No 5 wrote: “@united explain to me how you cancelled our flight, you tell us to go to baggage claim and then uncancel the flight and take off with our bags.

“We also sat on the plane for 2+ hours in a torrential downpour when everyone else went back to the gate. Then baggage services had 0 clue what was happening and kept saying they would pull our bags. Meanwhile the flight took off. Craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”

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Naturally, since it is 2026, the tennis star received an AI-generated response from the airline with the reply stating: “We understand that travel doesn’t always go as planned, and we’re sorry for the frustration, Jessie. Please DM us your confirmation number so we can assist.”

Pegula hit back with: “Where are my bags.”

Late on Tuesday, the issue appeared to have been resolved as Pegula praised a baggage service employee named Pete at Palm Springs International Airport (PSP) for coming to her rescue, and pleaded that he gets time off work to watch the WTA Finals at the Indian Wells Garden Centre.

“No thanks to the AI response but thank you to Pete at bag services in PSP who was the only helpful one regarding our bags and actually did his job with pleasure! My plea is that he gets off of work to come watch the tennis @united.”

If Pete’s employers do indeed give him time off work to watch tennis, then the earliest match he will see involving Pegula will be on Sunday as she will feature in an all-American clash with Coco Gauff.

And he could see two singles matches in the day as that encounter will be the second match on Sunday at the WTA Finals with world No 1 Elena Rybakina and Wimbledon champion Linda Noskova kicking off proceedings earlier in the day.