HENDERSON, October 25, 2019 (by Steve Pratt)
Former Wimbledon finalist Genie Bouchard highlights a talented field of women’s professional tennis players who will compete in the Henderson Tennis Open at a new venue and set to take place Nov. 4-10, tournament organizers have announced.
Formerly held in Summerlin, the USTA Women’s Pro Circuit $60,000 prize money event moves to DragonRidge Country Club and will once again feature world-class WTA level professional tennis for the 13th consecutive year in the Las Vegas area.
“After a successful week with the men’s ATP Challenger at UNLV, we now set our sights on the first women’s pro event in Henderson and the DragonRidge Country Club,” said Henderson Open tournament director JF Blais. “We can’t thank the City of Henderson enough for stepping up and becoming our title sponsor and we look forward to an incredible week of women’s tennis.”
The 25-year-old Miami Beach resident Bouchard of Canada is entered in the main draw of what is one of the final tour events of the pro season for WTA players. Bouchard, a one-time Sports Illustrated swimsuit model who boasts 1.7 million Twitter followers, burst onto the tennis scene in 2014 when she made the semifinals at both the Australian and French Open. At Wimbledon, Bouchard defeated world No. 3 Simona Halep in straight sets to become the first Canadian-born player representing Canada to make it into a Grand Slam singles final, ultimately falling to Wimbledon 2011 champion Petra Kvitová in straight sets.
blurry pics are my new fav thing pic.twitter.com/Q4zveii0pO
— Genie Bouchard (@geniebouchard) October 25, 2019
The 32-player main draw singles field will be made up of players ranked from No. 83 where Townsend sits to approximately No. 175. Former Las Vegas champion Varvara Lepchenko is entered, as are fellow Americans Francesca Di Lorenzo, Usue Arconada, Ann Li, Sachia Vickery and Caroline Dolehide. In addition, the women will compete in a 16-player doubles field.
Former US Open women’s doubles champion (2018) CoCo Vandeweghe from Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., is coming back from injury and will play in the qualifying tournament, which starts on Monday, Nov. 4.
Once again this year, the tournament continues the USTA’s Australian Open Wild Card Challenge, which kicks off in Macon, Ga.
Las Vegas is the third of four consecutive women’s hard-court tournaments that make up the women’s side of the Challenge, which will award an American woman a main draw wild card into the 2019 Australian Open. The USTA and Tennis Australia have a reciprocal agreement in which wild cards into the 2019 US Open and Australian Opens are exchanged. The Challenge also included an $80,000 events in Macon, Ga., and Tyler, Texas, each of the last two weeks, as well as the WTA $125,000 Series event in Houston (week of Nov. 11).
The women’s wild card will be awarded to the American with the highest cumulative total of WTA singles ranking points earned from their best three results during those four weeks. Only Americans who do not earn direct entry into the Australian Open are eligible. In the event of a tie, the player with the best ATP or best WTA singles ranking on Nov. 19 will be awarded the wild card.
