Preview: 2025 Roland Garros Junior Championships
The cream of the 2025 junior crop – the stars of tomorrow – will soon arrive in Paris to grab a share of the clay-court limelight as the countdown to the Roland Garros Junior Championships continues.
The second Junior Grand Slam of the season gets underway on Sunday and as well as performing alongside the game’s pros, the world’s top juniors will bid to enhance their reputations, lift silverware and scoop valuable ranking points.
This is also the stage of the season when the ITF World Tennis Tour Junior Rankings really begin to take shape and, with the Junior Championships, Wimbledon just around the corner, this period matters.
Looking at the names of those set to be on show at Roland Garros, some leap off the page immediately. Taking the girls’ draw first, Australia’s Emerson Jones is certainly a player with considerable pedigree.
Jones enjoyed a fabulous 2024 season during which she won the ITF Junior Finals in Chengdu, sealed her first pro title-win on the ITF World Tennis Tour and finished the campaign as the year-end junior world No. 1.
That was enough to give her ITF World Champion status, and her progress has continued apace this season. In January, the 16-year-old chalked up her first Top 50 victory on her WTA main draw debut at the Adelaide International, where she defeated Wang Xiyu of China, P.R.
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Queenslander Jones won a second ITF World Tennis Tour title at W35 Fukuoka earlier this month, but one thing missing from an impressive career CV is a Junior Grand Slam title.
Jones came close last year, reaching the girls’ final at both the Australian Open and Wimbledon – on both occasions she succumbed to Slovakia’s Renata Jamrichova – so perhaps 2025 Roland Garros will be her time.
Kristina Penickova of the United States, Belgium’s Jeline Vandromme, Teodora Kostovic of Serbia, Czech trio Tereza Krejcova, Jana Kovackova and Alena Kovackova, and Great Britain's Hannah Klugman will all be eyeing silverware in the girls’ draw.
Penickova, for instance, has prior experience of lifting silverware at a Grand Slam having won the girls’ doubles title at the Australian Open earlier this year alongside twin sister Annika.
Three of the four previous Roland Garros girls’ singles champions, meanwhile, have been Czech, so that should certainly pique the interest of the talented group of players from Czechia on show in the French capital.
In the boys’ draw, Spain’s Andres Santamarta Roig goes in as the top seed in the absence of Switzerland's Henry Bernet. Santamarta Roig has three J500 titles – the rung below Junior Grand Slams – to his name having triumphed at the Orange Bowl in December 2024 and then Gaspar and Offenbach this year.
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Jagger Leach of the United States, Finland’s Oskari Paldanius, Australian Open runner-up Willwerth, Italy’s Jacopo Vasami and Yannick Theodor Alexandrescou of Romania will also fancy their chances of success.
Paldanius is a member of the ITF-operated Grand Slam Player Development Programme Touring Team, which will be represented at Roland Garros – as it is at every Grand Slam.
As ever, there are some interesting and intriguing storylines which could well unfold in Paris. Amir Omarkhanov, for instance, could become the first Kazakhstani to win a Junior Grand Slam singles title.
In short, anything could happen, but it is worth noting that all ranking points won at Roland Garros will count towards qualification for October’s ITF World Tennis Tour Junior Finals in Chengdu.
The Finals will consist of the top eight boys and girls in the ITF World Tennis Tour Junior Finals Qualification Rankings. The Qualification Rankings can be viewed here.