Anastasia Potapova is the pick to beat Venus Williams when the two meet on Day 2 of the WTA Washington Mubadala DC Open, a first-round match that carries more weight because Williams enters on a 10-match losing streak. The prediction leans toward Potapova, even with her grass-court form described as poor, because the matchup is being framed as one the younger player should control.
That is why Williams is drawing so much attention now. She last won a match at this same tournament last year, but she has not been able to turn brief flashes of strong tennis into a result, which leaves this opening-round meeting under a sharper light than a normal first-round match. The six remaining first-round matches were set for Day 2, and Williams-Potapova sits among them as one of the day’s most watched contests.
The case for Potapova is straightforward, if not especially flattering to either player. She is viewed as the tougher opponent, and the backing for her win rests on the idea that, despite a terrible grass-court season, she is still the better player than Williams at this stage of their careers. That matters because the matchup is not being sold as a form-line comparison alone. It is also a test of whether Williams can stop the slide that has followed her through recent events and whether one more return to this tournament can look different from the last few months.
Williams is still the name that changes the temperature of the draw, and that is exactly why the forecast has become so pointed. Her season has included glimpses of great tennis, but not the consistency needed to finish matches, and that gap sits at the center of this pick. The note that Potapova is a tough opponent only sharpens it further: Williams may still produce stretches that look like the old standard, but the evidence on the page points the other way.
So the next step is simple. The prediction has been made, but the answer will come only when Williams and Potapova actually play the first-round match in DC. If Williams does find a way through, it would do more than end a losing streak. It would also rewrite the logic of a matchup that, on paper, already leans toward Potapova.
