Born and raised in a country of just 77,000 people and a single indoor tennis court, Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva was the youngest player in the girls’ singles draw at the Australian Open, where she was making her major debut.

Just over a year after the left-hander had no world ranking, she’s now a Grand Slam champion, having won four three-set matches, saving match points in one, and making history for the tiny nation of Andorra, the 16^th smallest country in the world.   

“We are getting so many messages of support from Andorra,” her father, Joan Jimenez Guerra told itftennis.com. Joan himself was a professional tennis player, rising to world No.505 in 1999. He’s coached his daughter since the day she really took to tennis, which Victoria says was at age six.

Jimenez Kasintseva won four three-set matches in her run to the title, including in Saturday’s final against Weronika Baszak. In her third round against Melania Delai, she saved three match points. The next round, the quarter-finals, she was down a set and 1-4 to No.2 seed Robin Montgomery before bouncing back.

“It’s my parents that gave me that fighting spirit. It’s them. It’s just (who I am),” she said. “I’m competitive in and out of the court. I was born with it. But also, losing is learning and if you want to be a tennis player, you have to learn to lose. It’s part of the game.”

But winning was the biggest part of it for his this Australian Open, which will make it a fortnight she won’t soon forget.

 

Here’s five things you need to know on the newest major champion in junior tennis:

• While she was born in Andorra and represents the country internationally, she trains both there as well as in Sitges, Spain, where her father has an academy just outside of Barcelona. The family (her father Joan, mother Julia and little brother Joan III), spent four years, from 2010-14, in Louisville, Kentucky, in the U.S., where her dad taught tennis alongside his brother, Carlos.
• She has splashed onto the ITF junior circuit in the last year, but in 2018, at just 12, she won the Future Tennis Aces tournament held in conjunction with Roland Garros, and got to play an exhibition tennis match alongside Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi.
• A big fan of sweets (“I will eat a lot of chocolate!” she said in how she’ll celebrate her Australian Open win), Jimenez speaks a whopping five languages: Spanish, Catalan, English, Russian and French.
• In main draws of ITF junior events she is a standout 50-10, including her six wins in Melbourne. In addition to her breakthrough Slam title, she’s won the Yucatan Cup (Grade A) in Mexico late last year, as well as a Grade 3 in France, two Grade 3s in Barcelona, a Grade 4 in Limelette, Belgium and a Grade 5 in Tarragona, Spain. “I try to go step by step,” she says of her forward progression. “We want to enjoy what we are doing,” added father Joan. “We don’t want to have expectations. If you would have told us a year ago that we will win the Australian Open, I will tell you you’re crazy.”
• With her Grand Slam-winning points being added, the world No.20 will rise inside the top 5 on Monday. The objective this time in 2019 was to finish inside the top 150. She’s far surpassed that. So what comes next?