The Credit One Charleston Open’s 25th Daniel Island edition enters the clay season with an unprecedented purse for this level on the WTA tour. Tournament organizers announced a total prize fund of $2.5 million, matching the amount awarded at ATP 500 events. The singles champion will collect $354,345, up from $164,000 in 2025.

“It’s a commitment not just to today’s players, but to the future of the sport,” according to the tournament website. The increase signals a clear investment in the event and in the athletes who will compete on Charleston’s green clay.

Top seed and defending champion Jessica Pegula arrives after a strong start to 2026. Pegula reached her first Australian Open semifinal and added a fourth WTA 1000 trophy in Dubai. Now back inside the Top 5, she also pushed through solid results in the Sunshine Swing, losing two close quarterfinal matches to AO champion Elena Rybakina at the BNP Paribas Open and Miami Open. Jessica Pegula can’t run into Elena Rybakina in Charleston, but the defending champion will still face plenty of top competition.

World No. 6 Amanda Anisimova is second among the top seeds and announced a coaching change on Friday. Anisimova aims to build on a breakthrough 2025 season in which she reached back-to-back Grand Slam finals at Wimbledon and the US Open. The 24-year-old completed a box set of Grand Slam quarterfinal appearances with a run at the 2026 Australian Open and reached the semifinals in Dubai, where she pushed Pegula to three sets.

A youthful contingent also figures to make noise. Eighteen-year-old Iva Jovic will make her Charleston debut after a breakthrough Australian Open, where as the No. 29 seed she stunned world No. 8 Jasmine Paolini en route to the quarterfinals. That run helped Jovic make her Top 20 debut on the WTA rankings.

With a historic purse and a competitive draw, the Charleston Open stands as a notable stop as players transition to clay for the season ahead.

Aryna Sabalenka begins her 80th career week as the WTA No. 1, a milestone that places the four-time major champion among an elite group in the sport’s ranking history. She is the 11th player to reach 80 weeks at the top since the WTA rankings began in 1975, and only the sixth woman to do so this century alongside Martina Hingis, Serena Williams, Justine Henin, Ashleigh Barty and Iga Swiatek.

Sabalenka’s advantage at the summit has in fact inched higher over the last month despite not competing since the Australian Open. A month ago she led Iga Swiatek by 3,012 points (10,990 to 7,978); the current gap reads 3,087 points (10,675 to 7,588). She will keep the No. 1 position through Indian Wells, where she is defending 650 points from a runner-up finish last year. The top ranking could be contested in Miami, where she defends 1,000 points as the reigning champion.

Last week’s WTA events produced significant upward movement in the rankings. Cristina Bucsa, who captured her first WTA title in Merida, climbed from No. 63 to No. 31 and eclipsed her prior career high of No. 50. Runner-up Magdalena Frech moved from No. 57 to No. 36. Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva entered the Top 100 for the first time, advancing from No. 122 to No. 97 after reaching the quarterfinals in Merida as a qualifier.

In Austin, Peyton Stearns claimed her second WTA title and rose from No. 62 to No. 48. Taylor Townsend, the finalist at the WTA 250 event and making her first WTA semifinal and final of her career, returned to the Top 100 for the first time since last summer, moving from No. 119 to No. 87.

On the ATP side, Flavio Cobolli recorded a notable rise to No. 15 after winning the ATP 500 in Acapulco, surpassing his previous best of No. 17. Jakub Mensik continued his steady climb: he reached No. 13 after a Doha semifinal and moved to No. 12 following a Dubai quarterfinal.

Janice Tjen climbed into the WTA Top 40 on Monday, moving from No. 46 to No. 36 after reaching the round of 16 at the Dubai WTA 1000 event. The 23-year-old is the first Indonesian woman to sit inside the Top 40 since Yayuk Basuki was No. 35 during the two weeks of the 1998 US Open, the weeks of August 31 and September 7.

Three weeks earlier Tjen had marked her Top 50 debut, rising from No. 59 to No. 47 after a second-round showing at the Australian Open. Her progression this season has been steep. On this day a year ago, Tjen was ranked No. 391. She only just started playing at tour-level at the end of last summer.

Tjen made her first tour-level main draw at the US Open, where she reached the second round. In the weeks that followed she reached her first WTA final in Sao Paulo and then captured her first WTA title in Chennai. Last week she reached the round of 16 at a WTA 1000 event in Dubai for the first time in her career, eventually falling to Amanda Anisimova.

Those results have included wins over established opponents. She already has four career victories against Top 30 players: No. 25 Veronika Kudermetova at last year’s US Open; No. 23 Leylah Fernandez at the Australian Open; a No. 29-ranked Maya Joint in Abu Dhabi; and the No. 29-ranked Fernandez again in Dubai. If those wins are a guide, further climbs up the rankings may follow.

Tjen is back in competition this week at the WTA 500 event in Merida, where she is the No. 6 seed. She will meet former Top 40 player Camila Osorio in a first-time meeting in the first round.