The words are doing their best. They really are.

But it’s very difficult for them to catch up to Tereza Valentova’s brain. The 16-year-old from Czechia has so much she wants to say, and she wants to say it so quickly, that words are just overmatched – like so many of Valentova’s opponents have been this week at the US Open Junior Championships.

The teenager, who punctuates quite a few sentences with “oh my God”, has enjoyed the best Junior Grand Slam of her career this week at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

In Thursday's quarter-finals Valentova, the No. 9 seed, defeated fourth-seeded Sara Saito of Japan, 6-2 6-4, to advance to her first Slam semi-final.

And afterward, boy was she excited to talk.

Valentova, on the match: “Oh my God, it was a really tough match. I’m so happy that I won. First set was easier, she was more nervous than me. Second set was tough, I was so nervous, I had match point and I double faulted, I was so nervous. Oh my God, when I finally had done it I was so happy.”

Valentova, on her impressions of New York City: “Oh my God, it’s really crazy here! I didn’t think it would be this crazy. I thought it would be crazy but not this crazy. The noise, the people … we went to Times Square and just so many people. People everywhere!”

Valentova, on her love of tennis: “I started when I was about three, and I saw my Dad (Marcel) play and I just wanted to beat him. I carried my racket everywhere and, oh my God, I just loved tennis right away and wanted to play all the time.”

Valentova did stop to take a few breaths, promise.

But the excitable Czech has reason to be excited with her play this week. Possessing equal power off her forehand and backward, the Prague native is one in a seemingly-endless line of top young Czech players. From Linda Noskova to the Fruhvirtova sisters (Linda and Brenda) to many, many more, Valentova has plenty of prodigiously talented company.

“It’s good, and it’s not so good,” Valentova said. “It helps and is good because I train and I see them doing so well, and I think that I want to be them. But it’s not so good because it’s hard to get (ranked) at the top, because there are so many of us.”

Marcel Valentova, in New York and helping coach Tereza, was beaming with pride but said there was more work to be done.

“She’s a fighter,” Marcel said. “There’s nothing weaker about her strokes, they are even and similar. But every match here is tough and she can play better.”

Valentova will now face No. 1 seed Renata Jamrichova of Slovakia, who continues to roll through the top half of the draw, in the semi-finals.

Jamrichova won her fourth consecutive straight-set match, beating Anastasiia Gureva 6-4 6-4, to take her own place in the last four.  Jamrichova, who was a semi-finalist at the Junior Championships, Wimbledon in July, has only lost 19 games in four matches as she seeks her first Slam final. 

In the other quarter-finals in girls' singles, American wild card Katherine Hui continues to produce impressive results. After dropping just one game in her third-round match, the Californian lost only three games in her quarter-final against Japanese No. 6 seed Ena Koike, 6-0 6-3.

“I think I definitely learned a lot from my loss against Genie [Eugenie Bouchard] in qualifying,” Hui said. “It really motivated me. I knew I had a lot of things I needed to work on, and being able to train with the pros has helped.”

There is some injury intrigue in the girls semi-finals scheduled for Friday: Hui’s opponent is slated to be No. 10 seed Laura Samsonova from Czechia, who defeated Hannah Klugman of Great Britain, 6-0, 3-0 (Klugman retired at that point).

Samsonova suffered an unspecified injury during that win, and subsequently pulled out of her doubles quarter-final she was slated to play alongside Alena Kovackova, handing the walkover win to the Japanese team of Wakana Sonobe and Hayu Kinoshita.

Tournament officials said Thursday night that Samsonova will be evaluated Friday morning, and it’s not yet known if the 15-year-old will be healthy enough to face Hui in the semis.

Click here for a full list of results from the 2023 US Open Junior Championships