Williams, D.C. native Baptiste win in doubles debut at D.C. Open

A doubles showcase kicked off the first day of the D.C. Open in Rock Creek Park Monday, including the tandem of tennis legend Venus Williams and District native Hailey Baptiste winning their opening match in front of a capacity crowd.

“Where I am at this year is so much different where I was at last year,” Williams said. “It’s night and day, being able to be here and prepare for the tournament as opposed to preparing for [fibroids] surgery a year ago.”

Crowds started to line up an hour in advance to secure a prime spot on John Harris Court to watch the return of Williams, playing this week in both singles and doubles for the first time in 16 months. 

“I mean, the crowd was insane,” Baptiste said of the fans, which included basketball star and Prince George’s County native Kevin Durant. “From the moment we stepped out of the players area, you could kind of feel the buzz walking onto the court. Just felt all the love for the both of us.”

As the previous match featuring Dan Evans and Zizou Bergs was going on, fans were queued nearly to the Fitzgerald Tennis Center entrance to ensure they’d be able to see the future hall-of-famer, at age 45, still demonstrate her passion for the game.

“Tennis is a game, it’s our life. Literally our obsession. It’s actually a cult, I think,” Williams said. “But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter if your health is not there. So it definitely put it in perspective for me and maybe made it easier to make the decision to maybe come back out here and maybe play even freer.”

Williams was touch and go with her serve, foot-faulting three times in the opening set — including on her first service of the match, which otherwise would have been an ace. Her strength, however, and what would decide the 6-3, 6-1 match in her and Baptiste’s favor over Genie Bouchard and Clervie Ngounoue, was her volleying and net-front presence. 

“She served first because she’s been playing all year and playing well,” said Williams, who will open her singles play Tuesday evening against American Peyton Stearns. “I think that helped me a lot I think also just to kind of get the feel for the ball.”

Williams displayed flashes of the brilliance that led to seven Grand Slam singles titles, deploying smashes and power when necessary but also demonstrating touch at the net to place the ball away from Bouchard and Ngounoue.

“I think that she’s always out to kill, which is obvious, because she’s been so dominant in her career,” Baptiste said. “We’re down one time 40-15 or 15-40 in her service game, and she’s, like, ‘All right, let’s get three in a row.’ And we did.”

After being broken in the first game, Williams and Baptiste rallied to break Ngounoue’s serve to level the set at 3-all. Bouchard would double fault the final two points in the next service game to hand over another break and the first set, and Williams and Baptiste would cruise through the second to a win.

“I was obviously very nervous to play with her. I didn’t want to let her down first match back and everything,” Baptiste said. “But we got our rhythm, and it was just great from there.”

The other afternoon blockbuster doubles tandem, Nick Kyrgios and Gael Monfils, also drew a packed crowd but ended with a quick result.

The duo, both former Washington champions, fell in only 59 minutes to the third-seeded pair of Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Hugo Nys 6-2, 6-2 in front of a standing-room only crowd on Grandstand, the tournament’s third-largest court.

Roger-Vasselin and Nys led on serve, converting an impressive 85% and 80% of their first and second service points, compared to Kyrgios and Monfils’ 59% and 27%, respectively.

Doubles tennis is being thrust into the spotlight this summer during the North American hardcourt season. The U.S. Open is leading a renewed emphasis on the format with a reimagined all-star-like tournament featuring the best men’s and women’s singles players in the world teaming up next month in New York.