‘S-HERTOGENBOSCH, Netherlands – The trophy was already hers before she struck a single ball Sunday morning. Robin Montgomery, a 21-year-old Washington, D.C., native who had arrived in the Netherlands ranked 484th in the world and worked through qualifying just to reach the main draw, became the champion of the Libema Open when Barbora Krejcikova withdrew from the final with an upper respiratory infection – and in doing so, completed one of the most unlikely comeback arcs in recent WTA history.
The walkover is recorded in the books as a title. What it represents, though, is something harder to quantify: a 21-year-old who lost nearly a year of her tennis life to a wrist injury, fell from No. 95 to a career-low No. 484, and then came back to the grass that has always suited her best – and won five matches in a week that no one outside the locker room expected her to win.
“I’m sorry to announce that I have to withdraw from today’s Libema Open final due to illness,” Krejcikova said in a statement released by the tournament Sunday. “I have been feeling unwell and after consulting with the medical team it has become clear that I am not in a condition to compete today. I would like to congratulate Robin for a great week here and wish her the very best for the rest of the season.”
Krejcikova’s week had been a portrait in quiet resurgence of its own. The two-time Grand Slam champion – 2021 French Open and 2024 Wimbledon – arrived in the Netherlands following a first-round exit at Roland Garros, her ranking having tumbled well outside the top 100 after a succession of injuries and inconsistent results. At Autotron Rosmalen, she played the cleanest tennis she had shown all season, dropping no sets through four matches against Renata Zarazua, Hanne Vandewinkel, Elena-Gabriela Ruse, and Magda Linette. The withdrawal came with particular bite because she had reached a first WTA Tour final since defending her Wimbledon crown in 2024, and because she now faces the days before the fortnight at the All England Club managing an illness rather than building on a final’s momentum.
For Montgomery, the circumstances of the title – the absence of a played final – do not diminish what she had already done over the previous six days. She came through two qualifying rounds before the main draw even began, then dismantled a field that included former top-five player Daria Kasatkina in the first round, dispatching the Australian in a demanding 5-7, 6-0, 6-4 contest that announced her arrival as a genuine threat on grass. She followed that with a 6-4, 7-6 (4) win over Greet Minnen, a 6-4, 6-4 dismissal of Daria Snigur in the quarterfinals, and then a clinical 6-4, 6-2 defeat of Ajla Tomljanovic in the semifinals – 68 minutes, no break points conceded.
The performance against Tomljanovic, the world No. 109, was particularly striking: the kind of controlled, aggressive left-handed tennis that had generated considerable buzz around Montgomery when she won the girls’ singles and doubles titles at the 2021 US Open at 16 years old. That promise had been deferred – by the grinding work of building a professional ranking, by a return to the WTA main draw that came in flashes rather than in sustained runs, and ultimately by the wrist injury that cost her the second half of 2025, beginning after Wimbledon and extending nearly nine months into the start of 2026.
What the title does, beyond the hardware, is deliver an immediate statistical correction: Montgomery jumps 291 places in the WTA rankings, landing at No. 193. That number matters less as a destination than as a base. She now has protected ranking points to lean on, a grass-court title to carry into Wimbledon qualifying or a potential direct entry, and – perhaps more importantly – a week’s worth of evidence against a quality field that her return from injury is not provisional. It is real.
The Libema Open has been home to WTA grass-court tennis since 1996, a WTA 250 event that has occasionally served as a proving ground for players on the way up and a confidence-restorer for those working their way back. Montgomery’s title fits both descriptions simultaneously. She had reached her first WTA Tour semifinal in Auckland in January 2025, before the wrist shut everything down. She had also reached the quarterfinals of this very tournament in 2024 as a qualifier, losing to Ekaterina Alexandrova, so the grass at Autotron Rosmalen was not unfamiliar terrain. The difference, this week, was that she stayed upright in every moment the draw demanded it.
There is a question the title does not answer. Krejcikova arrived in the Netherlands with a fitness cloud that has hovered over much of her post-Wimbledon 2024 calendar – a back injury that cost her the Australian Open, a ranking slide that has proved difficult to arrest, a quiet acknowledgment that recapturing the level she showed at the All England Club two summers ago has been slow work. The grass season’s central test – defending a Wimbledon title – now begins under an illness cloud whose severity neither Krejcikova nor her team has fully specified. That ambiguity is its own answer, and not a comfortable one.
What the scoreboard in ‘s-Hertogenbosch does say, clearly, is that Robin Montgomery is a WTA champion. The American grass-court season has produced its first genuine breakout story, and it belongs to a left-hander from Washington who the rankings had all but written off six months ago. The qualifier who came through two rounds of qualifying, won five main draw matches in five different levels of difficulty, and left the Netherlands with a trophy and 291 ranking places she did not possess seven days ago. The wrist is behind her. The ranking is moving. And the grass season has three weeks left before Wimbledon begins.
What Montgomery does not yet know – and what no one watching her this week can say with certainty – is whether the Libema Open is a summit or a launching pad. The WTA has seen enough comeback stories stall at the first major hurdle to withhold a verdict. That part remains unresolved. She will not figure it out on the courts of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. She will figure it out at Wimbledon.
