WASHINGTON, D.C. — Hailey Baptiste grew up just a few loose lobs from the Rock Creek Park Tennis Center — her family still lives there. She remembers watching Venus and Serena Williams when they played for the Washington Kastles of World Team Tennis.
“It’s funny,” Baptiste told reporters on Saturday, “literally two nights ago I was watching a video, because I went to the Kastles one year with the [Washington Tennis and Education Foundation]. I got to play doubles with Venus there. I think I was four or five years old.
“That was crazy that that happened. Could maybe happen in the future again.”
Baptiste is the quintessential homegrown success story.
Now 23, she returns triumphantly this week to the Mubadala Citi DC Open as a Top 50 player on the Hologic WTA Tour. She attended an after-school program at the William Fitzgerald Tennis Center in the nation’s capital and learned the game at the Junior Tennis Champions Center in nearby College Park, Maryland.
It’s been a stellar few months for Baptiste, who won both of her Billie Jean King Cup qualifying matches, against Denmark and Slovakia, sending the United States into the 2025 finals. She followed that up with a run to the fourth round at Roland Garros, her best effort at a major, and the third round at Wimbledon.
Her current ranking is a career-high No. 48.
“It’s probably my favorite week out of the year,” Baptiste said. “Growing up, I think I have been at this tournament every single year it’s been played. It means a lot, for sure.
“I wouldn’t say so much that there is pressure, but of course I want to win and do really well at my home tournament.”
In her first main-draw match — at the age of 17 — Baptiste upset Madison Keys in the first round. She lost a first-round match to Jessica Pegula in 2022, then qualified a year later and beat former World No. 1 Karolina Pliskova before losing to Coco Gauff. Last year, Baptiste qualified again but fell to Victoria Azarenka.
Growing up, Baptiste remembers marveling at the outsized photos of the attending stars posted outside Fitzgerald Stadium. Thanks to a thoughtful gesture from Mubadala Citi DC Open Chairman Mark Ein, this year she’s one of them.
“Mark put my picture up on the stadium here, which is amazing,” Baptiste said. “Just being a young kid, coming and watching the tournament, seeing that as you grow up, and to be one of the faces on the stadium is incredible.”
Perhaps she’ll have a similar pay-it-forward impact on some of the local kids that Venus and Serena had on a starry eyed, once would-be tennis star.
The Citi DC Open is the first volley of the North American summer hard-court season, kicking off seven weeks of fireworks across the United States, Canada and Mexico that finishes with the US Open, the year’s last Grand Slam.
Let’s take a closer look at what’s in store this coming week:
Majority rules
There are five (count them, five) major champions in the field here, headed by 45-year-old Venus Williams who accepted a wild card after a 16-month absence from the Hologic WTA Tour. Williams won seven Grand Slam singles titles and is a four-time Olympic gold medalist.
Four-time Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka also received a wild card, while Elena Rybakina (2022 Wimbledon), Emma Raducanu, (2021 US Open) and Sofia Kenin (2020 Australian Open) were direct entries into the main draw.
Top seeds
The top four seeds, who have first-round byes: No. 4 Jessica Pegula, No. 11 Emma Navarro, No. 13 Elena Rybakina and No. 29 Clara Tauson. Navarro and Rybakina are making their D.C. debuts.
Pegula caught fire last summer, winning in Toronto and reaching the final in Cincinnati, a pair of WTA 1000s, and getting to her first Grand Slam final in New York. This is her sixth appearance here and the scene of her first WTA Tour title in 2019.
Navarro is coming off a fourth-round appearance at Wimbledon, while Rybakina, the 2022 Wimbledon champion, lost in the third round of this year’s Wimbledon — to Tauson.
Best first-round matches
No. 7 Marta Kostyuk vs. Emma Raducanu
Naomi Osaka vs. Yulia Putintseva
Wild card Venus Williams vs. Peyton Stearns
No. 8 Magda Linette vs. Danielle Collins
Hailey Baptiste vs. Sofia Kenin
Leylah Fernandez vs. Maya Joint
Katie Boulter vs. Maria Sakkari
The three two-time winners on tour this year
While Pegula leads all players entered here with three titles in 2025 — on three different surfaces — the next in line might surprise you.
Getty Images
McCartney Kessler, the 26-year-old American, notched a pair of titles, in Hobart and, most recently, on the grass in Nottingham. Eighteen-year-old Aussie Maya Joint was the champion in Rabat and Eastbourne.
Local qualifying upsets
Taylor Townsend, half of the World No. 1 doubles team, along with Katerina Siniakova, trained for several years as a teenager at the Washington Tennis and Education Foundation. She and Asia Muhammad combined to win the doubles title here last year.
On Saturday, Townsend was a 6-4, 2-6, 6-0 singles winner over No. 3 seed Camila Osorio. Townsend will play No. 6 seed Emiliana Arango, a 6-2, 6-2 winner over Anastasia Zakharova, on Sunday for a spot in the main draw.
Clervie Ngounoue, the 2023 Wimbledon girls’ junior champion, is a Washington, D.C. native. She celebrated her 19th birthday on Saturday with a 0-6, 6-4, 6-3 comeback victory over No. 6 seed Kimberly Birrell.
Alana Smith, a 25-year-old American ranked No. 346, rode the second qualifying wild card into the second round with a rousing 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 comeback win over No. 2 seed Polina Kudermetova. She’ll play the winner of the later match between No. 4 Kamilla Rakhimova and Varvara Lepchenko.
Test your memory
How well do you know the DC Open? From its origins as a men’s-only event to its current status as a joint ATP-WTA tournament, Washington has hosted its share of notable names, surface shifts, and memorable moments. You might recall who won the trophy last year — or when the women’s event was added — but how deep does your knowledge go? Scroll down, take a shot and see how much you really remember.
Quick hits …
- Maria Sakkari, a two-time major semifinalist, is looking to rekindle her career by channeling the past. Four years ago, she swept into the final, defeating Leylah Fernandez, Pegula and Madison Keys before falling to Coco Gauff. She also reached two major semifinals, which eventually sent her to No. 3 in the PIF WTA Rankings. She’s currently at No. 88, has a record of 16-20 this year and is playing on a wild card.
- Eighteen-year-old Canadian Victoria Mboko also accepted a wild card.
- Clara Tauson enters the event with the most aces (251) of any woman this year, while Rybakina is next with 249.
- The winner here receives 500 PIF WTA Rankings points — and $197,570. There have been 10 different champions in 12 years of play.
- Magdalena Rybarikova (2012-13) and Svetlana Kuznetsova (2014, 2018) are your only two-time champions.
- Three players in the main draw made their Top 50 debuts this year: McCartney Kessler, Maya Joint and Hailey Baptiste.
- Just after 4 p.m., a violent rainstorm sent the players fleeing from the practice courts. It appeared that more than an inch of rain fell in less than 10 minutes.