WTA WASHINGTON, DC NEWS & NOTES
*Townsend-Zhang won the titles here in 2025 as the two seeds. They demolished Dolehide-Kenin 6-1, 6-1 in the final as 1.52 (-192) favorites. It was Townsend’s second straight title run in DC with her 2024 win coming alongside Asia Muhammad as the top seeds. The one or two seeds have won the titles her in three of the last four years.
*Dolehide-Kenin’s run to the finals as an unseeded pair continued a strong trend at this tournament. Four of the last six finalists between 2023-2025 were not seeded. 2023 was the last time an unseeded pair took home the titles with Siegemund-Zvonareva being that trivia answer. I’ll focus more on the Unseeded Menaces in 2026 in just a little bit.
*The straight sets win by Townsend-Zhang in 2025 marked the third consecutive season that the championship match finished in two sets. This tournament started in 2011 and there has only been ONE super tie break in the final. That was 2022 when Pegula-Routliffe outlasted Kalinskaya-McNally 12-10 in the STB.
*As for super tie breaks over the course of the tournament, 2025 had five total out of the 14 completed matches. Three came in round one and two more came in the quarterfinals. Four of the five involved a seeded pair. 2024 had four STBs and 2023 had five. Nine of those last 14 super tie breaks involved seeds with the #1 seeds maybe surprisingly being involved in five of them.
*Underdogs had a modest showing last year in DC with four wins. Three of those came in round one with one coming when a seed was knocked out. Two of the four overall involved a seeded pair losing. In 2024, there were just two dog hits, but both involved a seed pair going down. 2023 saw four underdog wins with three of four involving a seed losing. Focus on the seeded pairs if you’re dog hunting and note that round one has seen a seed lose in each of the last three runs of this tournament.
*The story this week in DC for the ladies is a story of nearly every pair here being a first-time pairing. Say what? Yes. Of the 16 pairs in the draw, there is a grand total of ONE regular pairing. That’s Eikeri-Gleason who are 13-11 on the year. There are NINE pairs that have never played together. That makes top seeds Errani/Melichar-Martinez one of the most experienced pairs … and they’ve only played one tournament together. With Jasmine Paolini’s injury, we have seen this pairing in 2026 and it was highly successful. Errani-MM made the Berlin final on grass in their first tournament together. Might this be the week for Erin Routliffe? She rekindles a partnership with Aldila Sutjiadi that has produced two titles, but it’s been three and a half years since they last paired. This is going to be a wild week!
As I laid out earlier, unseeded pairs have been a consistent factor in the final in DC in the last three seasons. However with the high number of combinations we’ve never seen before, it might be harder to predict which ones click and which ones do not.
Mihalikova-Watson
This is a pair that did play once back in Miami in 2024 and stretched Errani-Paolini to a super tie break before ultimately losing. I’ll take my chances even the slightest familiarity when hunting out Unseeded Menaces. They are in the Tjen-Zhang quarter with everyone else here not having any experience together. That could yield an opportunity for this duo to make a run.
Schnaider-Williams
We were supposed to see Venus Williams and Alexandra Eala, but Venus ditched that idea and pairs with Schnaider instead. To be honest, I am way for into this pairing. Venus hasn’t found much success on the doubles court this year at 2-6, but Schnaider is an interesting partner with plenty of power. The problem? She’s been lost without Andreeva as her partner this year. The Russians are 9-1 in two tournaments with Schnaider going 2-8 with six other partners. That’s not a good omen. Still with this tournament’s total disregard for regular pairs, who knows?
Li-Tauson
They have two whole matches together, but both have come at Grand Slams and both saw them lose in three sets. The most recent was at the French Open where they lost to Siegemund-Zvonareva. In a week where it’s hard to know what to expect, this is a pair that you can at least say has been very competitive in their previous time together.
Kenin-Potapova
Potapova hasn’t had much luck at 1-4 in limited doubles play in 2026, but sometimes it’s just about finding the right fit and situation. Is Sofia Kenin that fit? The American is 10-13 this year and this will be her 10th partner, so she’s used to learning new partners. The right situation could be facing Routliffe-Sutjiadi to start and perhaps blowing up that quarter with an early upset. As with most of the pairs here, this week’s theme really should be, WHY NOT US?
ONE AND DONE WATCH
Do we put everyone on the list this week in what looks like one of the more unpredictable draws that I can recall? I don’t think so. With the large number of first time pairs in the unseeded field, they could be at just as big a disadvantage. Here are the seeds that I think should be ready to rumble in round one though.
(2)Routliffe-Sutjiadi
2026 has been nightmare fuel for Erin Routliffe at 9-19 and she’s not partner surfing after her partnership with Asia Muhammad fizzled early due to subpart results. Pairing with Sutjiadi could bring some luck as the last time they played together in 2023, they won the titles in Austin. Still, Routliffe-involved pairs have lost their openers 12 times this year. Kenin-Potapova are up first with no experience together, so maybe, just maybe that helps the two seeds avoid the upset.
(4)Danilina-Fernandez
On paper, this should be a team that I like. Danilina has had experience this year working without her regular partner Krunic, so this won’t be a new experience. Fernandez is difficult to predict. She worked well with Siegemund to make the Queen’s Club final, but struggled with Mladenovic (1-3). That means this is a partnership that will truly be a work-in-progress and a round one foe like Tang-Xu who both come in hot, albeit with other partners, could be a tough one. Xu’s last work was a stunning Wimbledon semifinal run, while Tang made the Athens final with Lumsden. Keep an eye on this one.
DRAW PREVIEW
Click HERE for the doubles draw
TOP HALF
The top seeds look to be afforded a decent draw with (1)Errani/Melichar-Martinez set to battle Boulter-Iatcenko in round one. Boulter has lost four of five doubles matches to far this year, while Iatcenko has a sturdy 11-5 mark. That included a title run in Mumbai in early February. The Russian has been very good the last few years in doubles, but mainly at ITF levels. This is a step up and given Errani-MM’s results in Berlin, there’s definitely chemistry to go around. The top seeds should advance. The quarterfinals could see them against a veteran pair in Klepac-Ninomiya. They go against fellow first timers Ansari-Ma. I’ll side with the veteran presence of Klepac-Ninomiya in that one, but I would be a bit surprised if Errani-MM don’t get out of this quarter as the semifinal pair.
The second quarter houses (3)Tjen-Zhang. Both have plenty of reps with non-regular partners, so I don’t see that as a big issue here. Hell, Tjen won Birmingham this season with Talia Gibson in a first time team up. Zhang had made four finals this year with four different partners. It’s Rakhimova-Wu for them in round one and I’ll take the seeds in that one. The match opposite of that sees Mihalikova-Watson squaring off against Kato-Olmos. Kato-Olmos are 2-3 together this year and Mihilakova-Watson are playing for the first time together since 2024. This could be a low-key banger in the opening round. I would not sleep on whomever survives as they should have a legit shot to keep going, even if it’s against the three seeds.
TOP HALF FORECAST
We’ve got five first-time pairings in this half, so it’s going to be interesting to see if any of those pairs has some instant chemistry. Tjen-Zhang might be the best bet in that category, so I would not be surprised if the three seeds made the deep run in DC. It’s hard to pick a sleeper, but I think Mihalikova-Watson are ones to watch.
SEMIFINAL PIX: (1)Errani/Melichar-Martinez vs (3)Tjen-Zhang
BOTTOM HALF
This third quarter will have a lot of eyes on it because of Venus Williams. She’ll start her DC campaign with Schnaider against the only regular pairing in the draw: Eikeri-Gleason. The interesting thing about that duo is that they’ve never played on hard courts together. Their best results have been on clay, so perhaps Schnaider-Williams have a good shot in spite of their lack of reps together. The seeds in this quarter are (4)Danilina-Fernandez. I expect Tang-Xu, yet another first time team, will put up a good battle. This is a difficult quarter to call with the only experienced pairing having no hard court experience, so perhaps everyone is on equal footing. It’s hard to go with Schnaider-Williams here with the last minute partner switch plus Schnaider’s own difficulties this year finding wins when not paired with Andreeva. I’ll look to the survivor of the opener on the other side.
The final quarter sees (2)Routliffe-Sutjiadi looking to rekindle a bit of magic from several years ago. I will say as harsh as 2026 has been for Routliffe, hard courts have produced her best stuff. Five of her nine wins this year have come on this surface, so you’re saying there’s a chance? Perhaps. Kenin-Potapova are a complete unknown obviously, so I’d venture to say if the vibes are still there, the two seeds may well past the first round test. The other match has Americans Ngounoue-Smith taking on Li-Tauson. The experience edge goes to Li-Tauson, albeit two matches may not be enough to go on. Of the two Americans, Smith is the more experience as she’s a regular doubles player with a 22-15 record in 2026. I don’t think I’d count them out in round one.
BOTTOM HALF FORECAST
Four more first time pairs in this half with Schnaider-Williams getting the obvious profile glow-up this week. While they’ll have the crowd, is that enough against a regular pair like Eikeri-Gleason? I think (4)Danilina-Fernandez are the first timers to keep your eyes on. That may seem obvious since they’re seeds, but they look very boom or bust. With Tang-Xu having some experience, it could well be bust. There’s still a lot of guesswork down in this bottom half even with the success Routliffe-Sutjiadi have had previously. That’s three plus years ago, so I don’t know how much you want to rely on that for form. This half would probably also be good to put a blindfold on and make your picks.
SEMIFINAL PIX: Tang-Xu vs Kenin-Potapova
This is one of the craziest draws I can recall in recent memory as far as the number of duos that have never played together being in the same draw. It’s going to be that lack of regular reps that could likely spring some surprises this week, if anything that happens in DC can be categorized as such with this field. The top half to me looks the slightly stronger of the two due to that Errani-MM experience and I think Tjen-Zhang have both proven reliable with new partners enough to think they have a real shot too. The bottom half looks a lot more volatile to me, but then again, it could wind up being all four seeds in the semifinals, right? Enjoy the fresh faces this week. It should be interesting.
Tjen-Zhang
Tang-Xu
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DOUBLES TOURNAMENT PREVIEWS & PICKS 