On Saturday in Flushing Meadows, teen wunderkind Coco Gauff will bid to become the youngest American to claim the women’s singles title at the US Open since 17-year-old Serena Williams won her first major title in Queens in 1999. Gauff, at 19 years and six months old, will also aim to join a long line of teenage women’s singles champions at the US Open.
Nine women have previously won the singles title at Flushing Meadows, with Tracy Austin serving as the first and youngest to ever achieve the feat in the Open Era. Read up on all nine teen champions.
Tracy Austin
When: 1979 and 1981
Age: 16 years, 8 months, 28 days (1979)
What Happened: Austin defeated six-time US Open champion Chris Evert in the 1979 final, 6-4, 6-3, to become the first teenager to claim the title in the Open Era. Austin, a two-time champion and Hall-of-Famer, remains the youngest women’s champion in US Open history. She would win her second US Open title two years later.
Steffi Graf
When: 1988
Age: 19 years, 2 months, 26 days
What Happened: It took nearly a decade before another teenage woman cracked the code in Flushing Meadows. Her name was Steffi Graf and she was in the midst of one the most successful campaigns in women’s tennis history. The German won the calendar year Grand Slam in 1988, defeating Gabriela Sabatini, 6-3, 3-6, 6-1, in the US Open final, and also claimed the Olympic Women’s Singles Gold in the same year.
Graf is the only player in tennis to accomplish the feat.
Monica Seles
When: 1991 and 1992
Age: 17 years, 9 months, 5 days (1991)
What Happened: Three years later, 17-year-old Monica Seles edged legend Martina Navratilova, 7-6(1), 6-1, to become the third teenager to win a US Open women’s singles title, in 1991. Seles repeated the feat in 1992, defeating Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, 6-3, 6-3.
Martina Hingis
When: 1997
Age: 16 years, 11 months, 8 days
What Happened: The second-youngest women’s singles champion in US Open history is the Swiss Miss Martina Hingis, who stormed to the title in 1997, defeating Venus Williams, 6-0, 6-4.
Serena Williams
When: 1999
Age: 17 years, 11 months, 15 days
What Happened: Two years after Hingis’ exploits, Serena Williams became the third teenager to win the women’s singles title in Flushing Meadows in the 1990s as she took out Hingis, 6-3, 7-6(4), in an all-teen final. It would be the first of six titles for Serena in New York.
Williams, playing in just her seventh major singles main draw, had to come through a gauntlet of top-tier talent to reach the final. She defeated four eventual Hall-of-FamersーKim Clijsters, Conchita Martinez, Monica Seles and Lindsay Davenportーall in three sets to secure her place in the final.
Svetlana Kuznetsova
When: 2004
Age: 19 years, 3 months, 4 days
What Happened: The first teenage champion of the 2000s was Svetlana Kuznetsova, who took out compatriot Elena Dementieva, 6-3, 7-5, to win her first of two majors. Dementieva never did get her long-sought-after major title.
Maria Sharapova
When: 2006
Age: 19 years, 4 months, 24 days
What Happened: Maria Sharapova won her second of five Grand Slam titles as a 19-year-old in 2006, defeating Justine Henin, 6-4, 6-4, for her only US Open crown.
Bianca Andreescu
When: 2019
Age: 19 years, 83 days
What Happened: It took 13 years for another teenager to win the title at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Canada’s Bianca Andreescu, the first player to ever win the US Open on her main-draw debut, denied Serena Williams in the final that year, coming through, 6-3, 7-5, to become Canada’s first Grand Slam singles champion.
Emma Raducanu
When: 2021
Age: 18 years, 9 months, 29 days
What Happened: Two years later, Great Britain’s Emma Raducanu became the ninth teenager to raise the women’s singles trophy in New York by defeating Leylah Fernandez in the second all-teen final in US Open history. Raducanu, 18 at the time, also became the first qualifier to ever win a Grand Slam title.
