Three Grand Slam champions are playing doubles at next week’s Mubadala Citi Open. Venus Williams, the legend, is making her return to professional tennis after nearly 18 months away. She is playing both singles and doubles with Hailey Baptiste. Elena Rybakina is teaming up with Emma Raducanu to play DC doubles.
Some exciting news!
Emma is playing doubles at the @mubadalacitidc 🇺🇸🌸 with Elena Rybakina and they will play No.4 seeds Tereza Mihalikova & Olivia Nicholls in R1
Let’s go Team Rybacanu! 👊 pic.twitter.com/LymSay7rS4
— Raducanu News (@RaducanuNews) July 19, 2025
While it is not clear what Venus is up to, and no one really cares because any time the 45-year-old wants to play, especially on home soil, fans are all for it. Hailey Baptiste is an up and coming star who is from the Washington, DC area so that will be a pinch-me thrilling career moment for her.
A blockbuster Doubles match @mubadalacitidc
DC’s Hailey Baptiste is partnering w Venus Williams
They will face Genie Bouchard & DC’s Clervie Ngounoue in RD1
Baptiste shared today that when she was 5 or 6, she hit w Venus at a Washington Kastles match
Now they partner as pros pic.twitter.com/lmERnyolFV
— Ben Raby (@BenRaby31) July 19, 2025
The partnership of Rybakina and Raducanu is more intriguing. Both find themselves in similar territory as one-time-only Grand Slam champions that would like to get out of the group that also includes Marketa Vondrousova, Sofia Kenin, and Bianca Andreescu. Coco Gauff recently stepped out of the group. Winning one is a certainly validating, but winning a second one shows that the first was not a fluke.
What is also true is that Rybakina and Raducanu are planning to play US Open Mixed Doubles with Taylor Fritz and Carlos Alcaraz, respectively. Perhaps getting doubles match time in DC lays the groundwork for that reimagined tournament beginning a month from today (August 19).
Other Mubadala Citi Open surprises
It is a bit surprising that the tournament’s top women’s singles seed Jessica Pegula is not playing doubles this year. She is also supposed to play US Open Mixed Doubles with Tommy Paul, provided he is healthy enough to play.
Coco Gauff, the 2023 Mubadala Citi Open champion, is not playing at all in DC this year. DC was part of her Summer of Coco winning spree in 2023; however, she did not defend the title last year because she was competing at the Paris Olympics at the same time.
1st WTA Title!!! Thank you DC 👌🏾#citiopen pic.twitter.com/KLiGiLUxy5
— Coco Gauff (@CocoGauff) August 4, 2019
Both Pegula (2019 singles and 2022 doubles) and Gauff (2023 singles and 2019 doubles) are former singles and doubles champions in DC.
