The 2021 US Open Junior Championships kick off on Monday and run through Saturday, providing US Open fans with the opportunity to see tomorrow’s top stars today. Taking place on the field courts of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the junior championships feature 48-player singles draws and 24-team doubles championships.
Four US Open junior champions—Lindsay Davenport (1992), Stefan Edberg (1983), Andy Murray (2004) and Andy Roddick (2000)—have gone on to win the US Open singles title, as did junior runners-up Boris Becker (1984), Roger Federer (1998), Martina Hingis (1994) and Svetlana Kuznetsova (2001).
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the US Open girls’ singles champion in 2006, and Felix Auger-Aliassime, the US Open boys' singles champion in 2016, are the only players remaining in the main draws of the 2021 US Open who can join their ranks as junior and professional US Open champions. Pavlyuchenkova also reached the 2006 US Open girls' doubles final (with Sharon Fichman), while Auger-Aliassime won the 2015 US Open boys' doubles title (with Denis Shapovalov) and was the runner-up (with Benjamin Sigouin) the following year.
Pavlyuchenkova, the No. 14 seed, attempts to continue her advance through the women’s singles draw on Monday as she takes on No. 4 seed Karolina Pliskova in a fourth-round matchup. Auger-Aliassime, the No. 12 seed, faces unseeded 18-year-old Carlos Alcaraz in the men's singles quarterfinals on Tuesday.
Pavlyuchenkova was 15 years old and the No. 1 junior in the world when she captured the US Open girls’ championship 15 years ago. She played her first WTA main draw match that same year and soon began solidifying her place in the women’s game. Since 2008, she has been ranked in the Top 50 of women’s tennis every year and has finished in the Top 20 seven times, including last year. All told, she has won 12 women’s singles titles and has been a finalist on nine other occasions.
This year has already been a special one for the 30-year-old Russian. In June, she experienced a major breakthrough when she reached her first Grand Slam final at Roland Garros. In August, she teamed up with countryman Andrey Rublev to win the mixed doubles gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. A win by Pavlyuchenkova would send her into the US Open quarterfinals 10 years after her first and only other Final Eight appearance in New York.
And if she goes on after that . . . the possibility remains that Pavlyuchenkova can join Lindsay Davenport as the only players to win both the girls’ singles and women’s singles titles at the US Open.
As for Auger-Aliassime, who defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas in the semifinals on his run to the 2016 US Open junior title, the 2021 US Open marks his furthest advance yet in the men’s draw. He was dismissed in the first round in his first two US Open main draws (2018-19) and made it to the fourth round last year. By defeating Frances Tiafoe in the last 16 on Sunday night, after having ousted Alexander Zverev in the fourth round of Wimbledon, the 21-year-old Canadian has become the youngest man to reach consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinals in 13 years.
Setting marks is nothing new for Auger-Aliassime, however. Two years ago, he became the youngest player in the Top 25 in two decades.
Like Pavlyuchenkova, Auger-Aliassime can join Davenport in a unique entry in the US Open record book. Should he capture the US Open men’s championship, he and Davenport will be the only players in tournament history to cap off junior singles and doubles titles with a main draw crown.
