The Budapest Open is a women’s WTA 250 competition held in Budapest, Hungary, each season. In recent years, the competition has had several names due to sponsorship reasons. However, the tournament is commonly called the Budapest Open or the Hungarian Tennis Grand Prix today.
It is an outdoor clay competition. The first Budapest Open took place in 1996 when Romanian Ruxandra Dragomir defeated Austrian Melanie Schnell in the final. Between 1996 and 2013, 17 editions of the competition took place at the Romai Tenisz Akademia.
But the competition ended in 2014 after seven years when it was replaced briefly by the Bucharest Open in Romania. In 2021, the Budapest Open returned to the WTA tour, and it has remained on the calendar ever since.
As a WTA 250-level competition, the Budapest Open has a 32-player singles draw and a 16-pair doubles tournament. Usually, the event is held in late July, shortly after the conclusion of Wimbledon.
Due to the event's proximity to Wimbledon, some of the top players miss the Budapest Open as they recover from SW19. However, some elite WTA players have competed in and won the competition in recent seasons.
The most high-profile recent winner was Simona Halep, who lifted the title in 2013. Two singles players won the Budapest Open multiple times throughout their careers. The first player to win the event twice was Israeli player Anna Smashnova. She won back-to-back titles in 2005 and 2006. Just three years later, Hungarian-born Ágnes Szávay won the competition before winning another Budapest Open title in 2010.
