Simona Halep will make her first appearance on the tennis courts following her most-recent match. When her fans last saw her compete, Halep fell in the Wimbledon 2017 quarters to Johanna Konta of Great Britain. The result was a significant one in the careers of both players. For Halep, at one point in the match, the Romanian was actually within two points of getting the No. 1 ranking. Leading by one set and was tied at 5-5 in the 2nd-set tiebreaker, Halep's fortunes could have gone a lot different than how they ultimately went and she could easily be the No.
1 player right now. But the bottom line now is that Halep still has to chase the World No. 1 ranking and a title in Washington this week would help her to do that.
However, the World No. 1 ranking is not directly on the line with the results from the Citi Open. Currently, Halep is too far back of Karolina Pliskova to catch the Czech player with the result of one tournament. However, Pliskova has a lot of ranking points to defend later this summer and that promises to heat up the race for the top spot. The Washington 2017 title is a step for Halep at this point.
Halep will open against Stephens
The first step in winning Washington is for Halep to defeat Sloane Stephens. The American has not played many matches in the last year due to a foot problem that required surgery.
She is into Washington as a wild card, hoping to inject some ranking points into her own situation. The two players are on the order of play for Tuesday with a start time on Stadium Court of 1:50 pm (ET).
Halep and Stephens are opening the court for the day, not a bad position to be in. It prevents your match time from shifting around due to long matches involving other players.
They will be followed by matches involving Jack Sock, Dominic Thiem, Donald Young and Kei Nishikori, and Juan Martin del Potro.
Busy day involving other key players
Other key players that are on the order of play for Tuesday from Washington include Monica Puig, Christina McHale, Eugenie Bouchard, Kristina Mladenovic, Steve Johnson, Grigor Dimitrov, and Lucas Pouille.
The latter three players will be involved in doubles action from the Citi Open, a combined men's and women's event on the ATP and WTA tours. The match times are subject to change due to inclement weather. However, at present, the earliest court time is the Halep/Stephens match at 1:50 pm with action expected to go well into the evening with six courts running on Tuesday. The final for each of the men's singles and women's singles tournaments are scheduled for Sunday, August 6th.
