Kayla Day About

Junior No. 1, two torn hips, and the long way back to a main draw

Day came out of Santa Barbara with the deepest junior résumé of her American class: the 2016 US Open girls' title over Viktoria Kuzmova, a Wimbledon junior semifinal that same summer, and the year-end ITF No. 1 junior ranking, all before she turned pro in 2017. The senior tour has been a longer negotiation. She owns ten ITF titles and no WTA trophy.

The 1.73m left-hander plays a returner's game behind a two-handed backhand, and the career rates say so flatly, with 40.3 percent of return points won against a 60.1 percent hold rate. Her winners-to-unforced ratio sits at 0.62, so the pattern is extension rather than termination: the lefty serve opens the deuce court and the point gets built from there.

The gap between the two résumés was medical. Day told Roland-Garros in 2023 that she had fractured a foot and torn the labrums in both hips, and the tours shut down about the time she got healthy, leaving six years between Slam main draws. She qualified at the 2023 French Open, beat Kristina Mladenovic and then 20th-ranked Madison Keys 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 for a first top-20 win and a first major third round before Anna Karolina Schmiedlova stopped it. Her career high of No. 84 came on April 1, 2024.

As of September 2026 Day is WTA No. 117, 225 places better than a year ago and 33 shy of that peak. The 26-year-old is 2-5 at tour level this season, both wins opening main-draw runs: past Francesca Jones at Indian Wells before Iga Swiatek, and past Diane Parry from a set down in Montreal before Coco Gauff. At Wimbledon she took the opener off Keys in a first main draw there, leaving them level at 1-1 on record.

Kayla Day at a glance

Kayla Day is 27 years old; was born in Santa Barbara, USA; lives in Lake Nona, FL, USA; stands 1.73 m; plays left-handed; and is ranked No. 112 in the WTA rankings.