The 2025 season is starting with a bang for USTA Foundation Excellence Program alumna Robin Montgomery. The 20 -year-old from the nation's capital has reached her first WTA tour-level semifinal this week in Auckland, New Zealand thanks to three victories on the hard courts at the Australian Open tune-up ASB Classic.
Montgomery, who reached her first tour-level quarterfinals in 2024 with a run to the last eight on grass at a WTA 250 tournament in the Netherlands, and at home at the WTA 500 in Washington, D.C., broke new ground Friday in Auckland with a 6-4, 6-4 win over fellow American left-hander Bernarda Pera. The Junior Tennis Champions Center product hammered 19 winners to just seven unforced errors to beat her more experienced opponent, who owns two career WTA singles titles and was once ranked No. 27 in the world.
Montgomery entered the WTA 250 tournament, won by the likes of Serena and Venus Williams, Lindsay Davenport and Sloane Stephens in the past, ranked No. 117, 12 spots off the career-high of No. 105 she hit last August, and is projected to reach a new career-high regardless of her result for the rest of the tournament. Another win, assuring her a spot in the final, could put her into the world's Top 100 for the first time.
"I feel great," Montgomery said post-match. "I don't want to think about it really, but obviously, things are going well. I still have to do my routine, and it's just another day."
Benefitting from a pre-tournament withdrawal by 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu, who stormed to the women's singles title the same year that Montgomery swept the girls' singles and doubles titles in Queens, Montgomery defeated a pair of Japanese players, Mai Hontama and Nao Hibino, in the early rounds.
Montgomery will look to keep her run going against either No. 1 seed and another compatriot, Madison Keys, or No. 5 seed Clara Tauson of Denmark.