14-year-old Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva, from microstate Andorra, wins Australian Open Girls’ Singles title. Remember the name
Remember the name - Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva.
The 14-year-old from Andorra, the youngest player in the Girls’ Singles Draw, made history on Saturday by coming back from a set down to win the Australian Open title.
By defeating Poland’s Weronica Baszak, 7-5 2-6 2-6, Jimenez Kasintseva completed a remarkable run at her first ever Grand Slam that included saving three match points in the third round, and fighting back from a set and 1-4 in the quarter-finals.
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But it’s her backstory that makes her even more impressive.
Jimenez Kasintseva is from Andorra, a microstate squeezed between France and Spain in the Pyreneean Mountains. It has a population of 77,000 and spans just 468 square kilometres - it could fit inside the ACT five times.
She picked up tennis to spend more time with her dad Joan Jimenez, who reached a career-best ranking of 505 back in 1999.
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Jimenez Kasintseva won on Saturday on Rod Laver Arena - but as her dad revealed, she couldn’t have had much practice on an indoor hard court before that.
“We are from a very small country, with very big difficulties to play tennis because we are a ski country. We have only one indoor court in the whole country,” Joan told Ausopen.com.
“We had very difficult moments for practice, because we have to practice early in the morning because we didn’t have courts and travelling to Barcelona to have competitions.
“But I have a daughter that loves tennis, that has tennis in the blood and we are a family doing the best thing for her to be a good person, respect and the values, and she’s doing great.”
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Jimenez Kasintseva is now based in Barcelona where her dad runs a tennis academy.
“It’s really nice because Andorra is a super nice country. It’s small but it’s lovely. I’m really proud to be from there,” she said.
“I’m kind of the first tennis player (from there), so I would like to encourage Andorran tennis players to fight for it because I’m sure there’s a lot of people there that want to be living this dream.
“So I want to encourage them to get there, because I know somebody else can do it and maybe even better than me.”
Previous Australian Open Girls’ Singles champions include dual Women’s champion Victoria Azarenka, world number two Karolina Pliskova and three-time Open quarter-finalist Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (twice).