Hayley Carter

Hayley Nicole Carter is an American former professional tennis player. She has a career-high WTA doubles ranking of No. 25, which she achieved on 14 June 2021. Carter is primarily a doubles player. Over her career, she won two WTA Tour and two WTA 125 doubles titles, with nine titles on the ITF Women's Circuit.

Junior years

Carter played at the Smith Stearn's Tennis Academy growing up. She also won a record 14 South Carolina state championships. Between 2009 and 2012, she won three ITF Junior Circuit singles titles and one doubles title.
Carter played collegiate tennis for the North Carolina Tar Heels, where she earned All-American honors each of the four years she competed. She is the Atlantic Coast Conference's all-time leader in women's tennis singles victories with 168.

Professional

2019: New partnership with Stefani, first WTA Tour title

In September 2019, with Luisa Stefani as partner, she reached her first doubles final on the WTA Tour at the Korea Open, and the following week, they won their first WTA Tour title at the Tashkent Open. Thereafter, Carter established a fixed partnership with Stefani.

2020: Top 40 debut

The Carter/Stefani duo reached the third round for the first time at a major at the 2020 Australian Open where they were defeated by sixth seeded duo Gabriela Dabrowski/Jeļena Ostapenko.
They won the title at the Newport Beach Challenger, which was the second year in a row that Carter had won this event. They also reached the Dubai Tennis Championships quarterfinals in February, and won the Lexington Open in August. With that, they entered the top 40 for the first time.
At the Italian Open, they had another great tournament reaching the semifinals and losing only to the top seeds Hsieh/Strycová.
The pair's best result at a Grand Slam championship came at the US Open where they reached the quarterfinals, defeating the No. 6 seeds, Japan duo of Shuko Aoyama and Ena Shibahara, in the round of 16.

2021: WTA 1000 doubles final and top 25, coaching

Carter reached her best result at the WTA 1000 level by becoming a doubles finalist alongside Stefani in Miami, where they were defeated by the fifth-seeded duo Aoyama/Shibahara. Following Wimbledon, she joined the coaching staff of the Vanderbilt Commodores college team in July 2021. Through the rest of the year, she took part in three WTA tournaments in the US: the Cincinnati Open with Sabrina Santamaria, the US Open with Astra Sharma, and Indian Wells Open with Dabrowski.

2023

Carter returned to the University of North Carolina as an assistant coach in July 2023.

Grand Slam performance timelines

Women's doubles

Mixed doubles

Significant finals

WTA 1000 tournaments

Doubles: 1 (runner-up)

WTA Tour finals

Doubles: 8 (2 titles, 6 runner-ups)

Result

W–L

Date

Tournament

Tier

Surface

Partner

Opponents

Score

Loss

0–1

2019 Copa Colsanitas – Doubles|

Copa Colsanitas, Colombia

International

Clay