The WTA grass season begins this week, just days after Roland Garros, and the Libema Open in 's-Hertogenbosch is one of only two events on the calendar alongside the London 500. The draw is strong for a WTA 250: all eight seeds sit inside the top 50, two of them in the top 20 and five in the top 30. The top half rests heavily on Ekaterina Alexandrova's grass pedigree, while the bottom half is the deeper and more open side, holding 2024 Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova and clay-season standout Anastasia Potapova.
Top half leans on Alexandrova's grass record
Top seed Ekaterina Alexandrova arrives in poor form but on a surface that has long suited her. Since reaching the WTA 500 final in Abu Dhabi she has won just three of twelve matches and lost four in a row, the latest a 2-6 4-6 first-round exit to Camila Osorio at Roland Garros. The contrast with her grass record is sharp: she won this title in 2022 and 2023, has not finished below the semifinals in 's-Hertogenbosch in four years and reached the Wimbledon fourth round last season. Her 2025 run here ended in one of the most painful afternoons of her year, leading Elise Mertens in the semifinal, taking the first set and holding eleven match points in the second before losing. She opens against Hungary's Panna Udvardy, who did not play a single WTA main-draw match on grass last season, failed to qualify for Wimbledon and owns one career grass win, at Wimbledon in 2022. Udvardy has been more competitive this year with a 10-9 main-tour record and a clay semifinal in Rabat as her season highlight, though her grass record remains thin.
Emma Navarro comes in carrying momentum after winning the WTA 500 in Strasbourg, a title that lifted her back inside the top 25 following a difficult start to the year, 11-12 across all levels in 2026. Grass has been productive for her: 17 main-draw wins, a fourth round at Wimbledon and quarterfinals in Bad Homburg and London last season. She exited Roland Garros in the second round. Her opener carries weight, as Caty McNally won the grass WTA 125 in Newport last season and took a set off Iga Swiatek at Wimbledon, the only set Swiatek dropped on her way to the title.
The other seeded names in this half, Janice Tjen and Sara Bejlek, arrive without top-level grass experience and have yet to win a WTA main-draw match on the surface. Two bigger names sit well below their peaks. Paula Badosa, a former world No. 2 still managing recurring physical problems, received a wild card; she is 9-12 across all levels this season but carries 16 career main-draw grass wins and a quarterfinal run in Berlin last year. Daria Kasatkina is in a rebuilding phase but brings a 37-22 career grass record, the 2024 Eastbourne 500 title and a 2023 final there, along with a solid clay stretch that included the La Bisbal d'Empordà Challenger title and a Strasbourg quarterfinal.
The heatmap with performance on grass over past 12 months proves Alexandrova's pedigree and the wide-open nature of top half without any clear favorites. Robin Montgomery brings great serving performance and two qualies wins under her belt including 15 aces scored against Yue Yuan on Saturday. Solana Sierra made a surprising run to round of 16 at Wimbledon last year, mostly due to effective return play. Greet Minnen won the Birmingham 125 challenger in 2025 and performed the upset over Danielle Collins in opening round of Libema Open last year. She is also in main draw after two weekend victories in qualifying field.
Stacked bottom half brings names and quality
Second seed Clara Tauson faces the hardest task of any seed, finding form. A back hernia kept her off court from March to May; she retired against Katie Boulter in Miami and again against Oleksandra Oliynykova in Rome, then lost her opening matches in Strasbourg and at Roland Garros. She has not won since early March, a run of five straight defeats. The encouraging note is recent: before 2025 she had never won a main-tour match on grass, then reached the Nottingham quarterfinals and the Wimbledon fourth round, where she lost to Swiatek. She opens against 17-year-old Slovak wild card Mia Pohankova, who has no experience at this level.
Third seed Elise Mertens returns as the defending champion after last year's comeback over Alexandrova. She begins against former US Open champion Bianca Andreescu, a wild card who reached the quarterfinals here in 2025, and could meet last year's finalist Elena Gabriela Ruse in the second round if Ruse gets past Tamara Korpatsch. Mertens has 33 career main-tour wins on grass; within this field only Alexandrova and Kasatkina have more. Ruse has not built on that final run. She drew Madison Keys in the Wimbledon first round and lost in three sets, sits at 7-11 on the main tour in 2026 and retired in her opening match at Roland Garros against Magdalena Frech.
Eighth seed Barbora Krejcikova, the 2024 Wimbledon champion, is working back from health problems and has played only 14 matches this season, nine of them on the main tour, for a 4-5 record. Her Wimbledon title defense last year ended in the third round against Navarro. She opens against Renata Zarazua, who has a single main-tour grass win, a Wimbledon first round last year.
Anastasia Potapova was one of the standout names of the clay season, with a Madrid semifinal as a qualifier and a win over Coco Gauff at Roland Garros that ended Gauff's title defense, capping a 14-4 clay record that ranked third on tour. She opens against home wild card Suzan Lamens, ranked No. 128, who reached the quarterfinals here last season. Grass has been a different story for Potapova: 11-11 across her main-tour career, nothing last season, with semifinals in Birmingham in 2023 and 2024 her best results on the surface.
