Meet Dutch youngster Thijs Boogaard, a 14-year-old record breaker
To say Thijs Boogaard is having a good debut year in international junior tennis would be quite the understatement.
The 14-year-old Dutch player capped an incredible six months on the ITF World Tennis Tour Juniors on Saturday by winning his sixth consecutive title at J300 San Jose in Costa Rica, where he became the youngest player in history to win an ITF J300 tournament (formerly known as Grade 1).
In beating American Roy Horovitz 6-4 6-4 in the boys' final, he also extended his winning streak at ITF junior level to 30 consecutive matches.
The previous youngest player to win a title at this level was Bernard Tomic who (at 14 years 10 months) was four months older than Boogaard when he won a Grade 1 event in Kentucky, USA in September 2007.
Boogaard is in excellent company, with Felix Auger-Aliassime, Gael Monfils and Carlos Alcaraz all featuring beneath him in the top 10 list of youngest winners of a junior event of this stature.
Boogaard, who is currently the world junior No. 43, ultimately saw his winning streak come to an end on Tuesday at J300 Salinas in Ecuador, where he fell to Great Britain's Henry Searle 6-4 6-0 in the first round.
Even so, his winning tear puts him in joint-10th place for the biggest victorious streak in ITF Junior history.
Argentine Federico Browne leads the way on that front, reeling off 76 straight junior match victories back in 1994, but Boogaard joins a elite group of players on the list who have gone on to record excellent professional careers - including Belinda Bencic (39 successive match-wins), Jason Kubler (35), Janko Tipsarevic (33) and Daniel Gimeno-Traver (32).
Fan-THIJS-stic 🏆
— Mouratoglou Tennis Academy (@MouratoglouAcad) January 31, 2022
Thijs Boogaard 🇳🇱 defeated fellow Mouratoglou player Carel Ngounoue 🇺🇸 3-6 6-2 6-3 to become the U14 world champion at @LesPetitsAs! pic.twitter.com/HkqtzY6i8C
Before making his debut on the ITF World Tennis Juniors Tour last year, Boogaard was crowned champion at the prestigious 14-and-under Les Petit As tournament in January 2022 - celebrating his triumph with Cristiano Ronaldo's trademark 'siiuuu' celebration.