Gauff, Jabeur, Vondrousova and Ostapenko join growing Stuttgart field

Over the past week, the tournament announced that Coco Gauff, Marketa Vondrousova, Ons Jabeur and Jelena Ostapenko are set to appear at the WTA 500 indoor clay-court event, which starts on April 15.

“First of all, [Gauff is] a player I love watching,” said Markus Günthardt, the Tournament Director of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix. ‟And secondly, we’ll be hosting all four reigning Grand Slam champions.”

“Ons is one of the nicest players on the Tour[,] the fans love her,” said Anke Huber, the former World No.4 and the Operating Tournament Director of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix. ‟Jelena has started the year off well and is always good for a surprise. The fact that Marketa, the Wimbledon champion will be back in Stuttgart is an accolade for our tournament.”

Reigning US Open champion Gauff will contest the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix for the third straight year. The World No.3 and 2022 Roland Garros finalist is planning to kick off her clay-court season in Stuttgart.

Three-time Grand Slam finalist Jabeur has gone deep in each of her two previous Stuttgart appearances. She reached the quarterfinals in her 2022 tournament debut, then went one better last year, making the semifinals before having to retire against World No.1 Iga Swiatek.

Reigning Wimbledon champion Vondrousova will be making her first Stuttgart appearance since 2022, when she lost to Jabeur in the first round. Vondrousova avenged that loss multiple times since then, including defeating Jabeur for last year’s Wimbledon title.

Ostapenko will be in Stuttgart for the sixth time in her career; she lost to Jabeur in the second round last year. Ostapenko’s best career result at the event was a quarterfinal run in 2018, the year after she won Roland Garros.

Gauff, Vondrousova and Ostapenko have increased the number of Grand Slam champions already entered into the field from four to seven. They join fellow major champions Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka, Angelique Kerber and Emma Raducanu as early entrants.

Swiatek is the two-time defending Stuttgart champion, while Kerber also won this title back-to-back on her home soil, in 2015 and 2016. Two-time Australian Open champion Sabalenka has come very close to winning the Stuttgart title as well, having finished runner-up in each of the last three years.

The Porsche Tennis Grand Prix was first played in Filderstadt in 1978, and it has been held at the Porsche Arena in Stuttgart since 2006. Since moving to Stuttgart, other former champions include Justine Henin, Maria Sharapova, Petra Kvitova, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Ashleigh Barty.