{"id":269075,"date":"2026-08-20T21:04:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T21:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/269075\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T21:04:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T21:04:07","slug":"philly-open-brings-womens-pro-tennis-back-to-philadelphia-nbc10-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/269075\/","title":{"rendered":"Philly Open brings women\u2019s pro tennis back to Philadelphia \u2013 NBC10 Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professional women\u2019s tennis is returning to Philadelphia for the first time in 20 years with the inaugural Ennoble Care Philly Open<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The tournament at the University of Pennsylvania\u2019s Hamlin Tennis Center will bring dozens of elite players to the city. It kicks off Sunday and runs through Aug. 29.<\/p>\n

The event is part of a larger effort by Philadelphia Sisters to make the city a premier destination for women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n

Comedian Wanda Sykes, one of the founders of Philadelphia Sisters, said the group is excited to help bring professional women\u2019s tennis back to the city.<\/p>\n

\u201c20 years since we\u2019ve had professional women\u2019s tennis here so we are super excited to be involved with bringing it back,\u201d Sykes said.<\/p>\n

Alex Niedbalski-Sykes of Philadelphia Sisters said the organization has worked for nearly seven years to bring more women\u2019s sports to the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to bring more women\u2019s sports moving forward because Philadelphia is a women\u2019s sports town,\u201d Niedbalski-Sykes said.<\/p>\n

Organizers also hope the Philly Open will give young athletes a chance to see women competing at the highest levels of their sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo help our kids see that women\u2019s athletes rock and that they can achieve like the greatest levels that men are always on TV for doing,\u201d Ashley Lunkenheimer of Philadelphia Sisters said.<\/p>\n

For young tennis player Trinity Harvey, seeing professional players compete close to home is an exciting opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am super duper excited!\u201d Harvey said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause they encourage me, other kids and other women can like go on with their dream,\u201d Harvey added.<\/p>\n

Starla Crandall of Philadelphia Sisters said that kind of representation can give young people something to work toward.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo see yourself in someone playing sports and achieving I think gives kids a reason to be involved, something to aspire to and that’s why we do it,\u201d Crandall said.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia Sisters says tennis is only part of its vision for growing women\u2019s sports in the city. Lacrosse, ice hockey and soccer are among the possibilities the group is considering next.<\/p>\n

For now, organizers hope the inaugural Philly Open demonstrates the city\u2019s appetite for women\u2019s athletics.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhiladelphia is hungry for women\u2019s sports. They show up for women\u2019s sports,\u201d Sykes said.<\/p>\n

This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC Philadelphia. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC Philadelphia journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Professional women\u2019s tennis is returning to Philadelphia for the first time in 20 years with the inaugural Ennoble…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,726,38770],"class_list":["post-269075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}