Iva Jovic kickstarted her professional career with debut wins at the 2024 US Open and 2025 Australian Open, making the most of a pair of wild cards. Now, the 17-year-old from Torrance, Calif., has a chance to repeat the feat at the French Open, after earning her place in Paris via the USTA's Roland Garros Wild Card Challenge.
Jovic booked her US Open spot by winning the USTA Girls' 18s National Championships and made it to Melbourne via another USTA Wild Card Challenge. Her early results at the majors follow a pattern of Grand Slam success at the junior level: Last season, she reached the quarters and semis at junior Roland Garros and Wimbledon, respectively, and won junior doubles crowns at AO and Wimbledon with Tyra Caterina Grant.
After she competed at the pro level in singles, doubles and mixed doubles at the 2024 US Open, Jovic capped her junior career by advancing to the junior singles semis at her home Slam.
All this winning at the majors has Jovic feeling very comfortable on the Grand Slam stage: "Just playing the junior Slams and being in that environment automatically prepares you for being there as a pro because you've seen everything," she told USTA.com.
"Nothing's new for you."
While the setting remains the same, the step up to the pro level can be intimidating for even the brightest of rising stars. Yet, Jovic has taken it in stride.
"The junior group that I was in was so strong. We had so many great players, so I just don't think that the level difference between those top juniors and some of the pros was drastic," she explained. "The juniors are so talented and we had such great battles, so it wasn't that difficult to translate the level into the seniors for some of those wins."
Jovic's Grand Slam wins came against 2023 Aussie Open semifinalist Magda Linette at the US Open and former Top 50 Spaniard Nuria Parrizas Diaz in Melbourne. She pushed 29th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova deep into a third set in the New York second round, but won just three games against sixth seed Elena Rybakina, the 2022 Wimbledon champ, in Australia.
"It's definitely a distinct gap between the Top 10 and probably the rest of the players," Jovic said of the professional level. "But in general, I think that the top juniors, they hit the ball just as well.
"It's more about kind of improving the physicality and the mentality of being there every point," she added. "Sometimes the juniors will play a couple of sloppy games and kind of let you run with it, but the pros won't do that. So I think that's the main difference that I've had to get used to."
More recently, Jovic forced a third set against world No. 5 Jasmine Paolini, a two-time major finalist last year, in the Indian Wells second round. She followed that up with her first WTA Tour-level win on clay in Bogota, then won her first professional title on the dirt at the USTA Pro Circuit W100 event in Charlottesville, Va., in April. Those clay results paved the path to her Roland Garros wild card—a path that was a challenge to forge on a once-unfamiliar surface.
Read more about the USTA's Roland Garros Wild Card Challenge
For a self-described "SoCal girl" who lifted prestigious hard-court titles throughout her junior career, rising as high as world No. 2, senior success on her native surface was a natural progression. But it took a more concerted effort to find comfort on the clay.
"It just really wasn't part of my childhood," Jovic said of clay-court tennis. "It definitely slows down the tennis a little bit and it makes it harder to get the ball past someone. I think I've grown a lot as a player with just having to use different tools to finish points... I think it's so good for development."
Jovic's home base is the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Fla., where she works with USTA coach Tom Gutteridge and rubs shoulders with the likes of Madison Keys and Ben Shelton: "It's a great atmosphere and I love being out there," said Jovic, who also receives guidance from Kathy Rinaldi.
The red and green clay courts at the National Campus allow Jovic to tailor her training schedule to the American or European clay. Ahead of Roland Garros, she is training in Munich with Integralis, a sports performance group she has been working with on adapting to the dirt.
"I think I've improved a lot, physically and movement-wise on the clay," Jovic said. "I've been working with Integralis and Isabella Eichhorn to just get a little bit more comfortable moving on the dirt. So I think it's helped me a lot. Now I would say I like the clay," she added with a laugh.
Jovic has enjoyed working on baseline movement and pattern drills, while also using medicine balls on the clay to work on footwork and positioning with shadow strokes. With her confidence continuing to rise, Jovic can now look forward to the ultimate clay-court test on the famed terre battue of Paris.
"The energy at Roland Garros is really special," she said. "It is very crowded and it kind of feels like everyone's on top of you a little bit, but I think that's really cool. You can just hear the crowd and you can hear the energy. It's very small, but I think it's super charming. And then Paris is obviously such a cute city, so I'm so excited to go back."
Currently at a career-high WTA ranking of No. 120, Jovic has her sights set on cracking the Top 100 by season's end. With no ranking points to defend at Roland Garros (at least not at the pro level, for last year's junior quarterfinalist), Jovic could take a major step toward that goal with another strong Slam showing.
