This time last year, Washington, D.C. native Hailey Baptiste was clinging on to the WTA’s Top 100, and needed a wild card just to get into the Miami Open, where she won two matches to reach the third round.
What a difference 12 months makes.
On Monday, the 24-year-old will play in the Round of 16 at a WTA 1000 event for the first time in her career after scoring the best win of her career by ranking on Sunday over world No. 9 Elina Svitolina, 6-3, 7-5. The win against the Ukrainian was Baptiste’s second career Top 10 win—she beat a hampered Barbora Krejcikova in Wuhan in 2024—but beating the player who came into Miami with the most match wins on either the ATP or WTA this season made a strong statement.
“You can’t get to this point without doing the right things, and I’ve definitely been putting in a lot of work off the court and on the court, behind the scenes, and it’s clearly showing up,” she told reporters afterwards.
“I’ve been here for a while, everybody pretty much knows what I can do and it’s time for me to show it, I guess.”
