During the early afternoon on Court 6 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on Sunday, a young junior girls’ player stepped onto court for her first-round match at the 2024 US Open Junior Championships. Across the grounds a few hours later, an untrained eye might’ve thought that that same player had returned for more. “Two matches in one day?,” one might ask themselves.
But tennis fans weren’t hallucinating: They were just seeing both halves of junior tennis’ newest sister act, identical twins Annika Penickova and Kristina Penickova.
The 14 year-old Americans–who say it’s “such a privilege” to be compared to some of the sport’s other famous sibling duos, of which Venus and Serena Williams are the most well-known–are storming onto the scene. Kristina (pictured below) is the No. 9 seed in the junior US Open in a season where she made it to the semifinals of junior Roland Garros. Annika (pictured above) has solidly broken into the Top 100, and just scored a strong upset over the No. 12 seed in her first round Flushing matchup.
It must run in the family.
Tennis is, in fact, a complete family affair for the Penickovas. Their grandmother homeschools them (in their parents’ native language of Czech), and on the court, their father, Tomas Penicka, is their main coach. Both of their parents are former professional Czech tennis players, so crawling onto the court as toddlers was a foregone conclusion.
“We kind of grew up playing tennis, around tennis, everything tennis,” Annika says. “I love it so much. We grew into it, and we were surrounded by it, so it’s amazing."
Naturally, the two have also joined forces to create a threatening doubles duo. Clad in matching coral dresses and neat long braids in Flushing last year, the two looked every bit the identical twins they are as they reached the junior girls’ doubles quarterfinals. Since then, they’ve played together at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, and grabbed four international titles.
Could it be twin telepathy on the court?
“Playing together we have that twin sister thing, so when we play doubles we know what we’re doing,” Annika says with a smile, like she’s definitely been asked that question before.
The two have also been across the net from each other many times–a place where Kristina says that exact “twin sister thing” has occasionally caused some trouble.
“There’s so many times when … we’d play each other in the finals, and then I’d win, or she’d win, and then they’d get us mixed up,” she notes. “Or in the score, they’d put in that she won, but I won.”
At the end of the day, though, the two are grateful to have each other on this journey up the rankings. Life on the tour, even as a young junior, can be jam-packed and grueling—Kristina, for example, jetted up to Canada to join her in a J300 tournament in the two short weeks between her first-round qualifying loss in the US Open’s women’s draw (her exploits this year earned her a wild card) and her Sunday opening match in the juniors draw.
“It helps so much to have a support system, like a buddy,” Annika says. “They’re always with you, you can always talk to them, turn to them. Like when we’re doing nothing, you know, we always have fun.”
“We trust each other completely, with everything,” Kristina adds.
The Penickovas are not, however, junior tennis’ only twin duo. No. 2 boys’ seed Kaylan Bigun also has a tennis-playing other half: Princeton tennis commit Meecah Bigun, a Top 100-ranked player who the junior Roland Garros champion has said helped contribute to his own rise.
“It’s been so awesome. It’s like having your biggest competitor and motivator with you there every day of your life, so I was really fortunate to have that,” Kaylan Bigun says. “We’re really competitive in everything we do, from ping pong to Xbox, so I think it really made me the competitor I am today.”
The Penickovas likely agree that the built-in motivator a twin provides is unmatched–and that push will come in handy for where this dynamic duo is going next.
In the words of Annika: “This is the pace I want to go at, if not even faster, to get to the top.”
