2021 Citi Open

It was the 52nd edition of the Washington Open. The event was part of the ATP Tour 500 series of the 2021 ATP Tour and part of the US Open Series leading up to the US Open grand slam in September. The Washington Open took place at the William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center in Washington, D.C., United States, from July 31 to August 8, 2021.

2021 Citi Open
Date	July 31 – August 8
Edition	52nd
Category	ATP Tour 500
Surface	Hard (outdoor) SportMaster Sport Surfaces
Location	Washington, D.C., United States
Champions
Singles
Jannik Sinner
Doubles
Raven Klaasen / Ben McLachlan
← 2019 · Washington Open · 2022 →

Singles

•   Jannik Sinner def.   Mackenzie McDonald 7–5, 4–6, 7–5

Doubles

•   Raven Klaasen /   Ben McLachlan def.   Neal Skupski /   Michael Venus 7–6^(7–4), 6–4.

Points distribution

Prize money

_{*per team}

Seeds

Country	Player	Rank1	Seed
ESP	Rafael Nadal	3	1
CAN	Félix Auger-Aliassime	15	2
AUS	Alex de Minaur	18	3
BUL	Grigor Dimitrov	21	4
ITA	Jannik Sinner	23	5
GBR	Dan Evans	27	6
GBR	Cameron Norrie	29	7
USA	Reilly Opelka	36	8
KAZ	Alexander Bublik	39	9
USA	Taylor Fritz	42	10
AUS	John Millman	44	11
USA	Sebastian Korda	47	12
FRA	Benoît Paire	49	13
RSA	Lloyd Harris	51	14
SRB	Miomir Kecmanović	52	15
USA	Frances Tiafoe	54	16

• ¹ Rankings are as of July 26, 2021

Other entrants

The following players received wild cards into the singles main draw:

•   Jenson Brooksby
•   Feliciano López
•   Rafael Nadal
•   Brandon Nakashima
•   Jack Sock

The following players received entry from the singles qualifying draw:

•   Emilio Gómez
•   Prajnesh Gunneswaran
•   Mitchell Krueger
•   Illya Marchenko
•   Ramkumar Ramanathan
•   Elias Ymer

Withdrawals

Before the tournament

•   Hubert Hurkacz → replaced by   Emil Ruusuvuori
•   John Isner → replaced by   Andreas Seppi
•   Aslan Karatsev → replaced by   Daniel Elahi Galán
•   Karen Khachanov → replaced by   Mackenzie McDonald
•   Dominik Koepfer → replaced by   Ilya Ivashka
•   Kwon Soon-woo → replaced by   James Duckworth
•   Jaume Munar → replaced by   Kevin Anderson
•   Guido Pella → replaced by   Steve Johnson
•   Albert Ramos Viñolas → replaced by   Jordan Thompson
•   Milos Raonic → replaced by   Ričardas Berankis
•   Denis Shapovalov → replaced by   Egor Gerasimov

Seeds

Country	Player	Country	Player	Rank1	Seed
AUS	John Peers	SVK	Filip Polášek	36	1
GBR	Neal Skupski	NZL	Michael Venus	36	2
IND	Rohan Bopanna	CRO	Ivan Dodig	53	3
RSA	Raven Klaasen	JPN	Ben McLachlan	61	4

• ¹ Rankings are as of July 26, 2021

Other entrants

The following pairs received wildcards into the doubles main draw:

•   Nick Kyrgios /   Frances Tiafoe
•   Sam Querrey /   Jack Sock

The following pair received entry from the doubles qualifying draw:

•   Benoît Paire /   Jackson Withrow

Withdrawals

Before the tournament

•   Juan Sebastián Cabal /   Robert Farah → replaced by   Fabrice Martin /   Max Purcell
•   Wesley Koolhof /   Jean-Julien Rojer → replaced by   Grigor Dimitrov /   Tommy Paul
•   Łukasz Kubot /   Marcelo Melo → replaced by   Marcus Daniell /   Marcelo Melo
•   Nikola Mektić /   Mate Pavić → replaced by   Marcelo Arévalo /   Matwé Middelkoop
•   Jamie Murray /   Bruno Soares → replaced by   Sebastian Korda /   Jannik Sinner
•   Rajeev Ram /   Joe Salisbury → replaced by   Alexander Bublik /   Andrey Golubev

Between 2011 and 2019, the Citi Open hosted conjoining men and women tournaments. However, amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) revoked its sanction of the Citi Open for the year's tour and added two events to its provisional calendar instead: the Top Seed Open in Lexington, Kentucky and the Prague Open. After the Citi Open returned in 2021 from the event's eventual cancellation in the prior year, the WTA stayed its revocation of the event's sanction, so the women's tournament did not return as many women's players had scheduling conflicts with the 2020 Summer Olympics. In its place, event officials created the inaugural women's invitational as a three-day exhibition during the US Open Series. Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula, and Jennifer Brady were the three original headliners, though Brady was later replaced by Victoria Azarenka.

The players played in a round-robin format; the winner of each pair in their first matches would then play each other in the final match. The games were played in a best-of-three set format with regular scoring and a 10-point "super tiebreak" to decide the third set. The player with the best record would be crowned the champion and in the case of a tie, the winner would be decided by the player who won the most sets or games. Because the tournament was not sanctioned by the WTA, the players would not accrue or lose any points. The prize money for the inaugural champion was set at $25,000. On August 5, Gauff defeated Azarenka in the first match, 6–3, 6–1. Azarenka was scheduled to play Pegula the following day, after Brady withdrew from the tournament, to decide the final match, but Azarenka herself later withdrew from the invitational after suffering an ankle injury. On August 7, Pegula defeated Gauff in the final match, 4–6, 7–5, [10-8], to win the invitational.