ITF

ITFWORLD WINTER 2017 7 www.itftennis.com W HITNEY OSUIGWE shot up the ITF Junior Rankings in 2017 to finish the year at No. 1 and be named ITF Junior World Champion. The 15-year-old from Florida won six singles titles, including Roland Garros, where she lifted the trophy in just her second junior Grand Slam appearance. Ranked No. 95 at the start of the season, Osuigwe wasn't placed high enough to compete at the Australian Open but made an instant impact with back-to-back tournament victories on clay at the Asuncion Bowl in Paraguay and the Banana Bowl in Brazil. That laid the groundwork for her triumph at Roland Garros four months later, where Osuigwe survived consecutive three-set matches in the opening three rounds before battling past compatriot Claire Liu 64 67(5) 63 in the final in two hours, 7 minutes. With her first Grand Slam title under her belt, Osuigwe entered junior Wimbledon as the No. 2 seed but lost in the quarterfinals. She did however progress to the final of the girls doubles event with fellow American Caty McNally, the pair losing in the decider to Serbia's Olga Danilovic and Slovenia's Kaja Juvan. Back in the United States, Osuigwe was upset in the second round of the US Open by Russia's Anastasia Kharitonova. A highly successful week in Budapest where Osuigwe led USA to the Junior Fed Cup by BNP Paribas title served to galvanise her for the rest of the season. She won all five singles and three doubles matches alongside teammates McNally and Amanda Anisimova to help her country to victory in the 16-and-under team competition, including the decisive singles against Japan's Yuki Naito in the final. From there, Osuigwe won the Pan American ITF Championship in Tulsa in October to ascend to the girls No. 1 ranking, and was runner-up at the Grade A Osaka Mayor's Cup in Tokyo the following week. From the start of October through the end of 2017, she won 31 of 34 singles matches to hold on to the top spot, achieving the goal of finishing year-end No. 1 that she had set herself at the start of the season. In that time she also finished in third place at the ITF Junior Masters, was runner-up at the Grade A Abierto Juvenil Mexicano in both singles and doubles, won the singles and doubles titles at the Eddie Herr tournament, and lifted her sixth singles trophy of the season at the Grade A Orange Bowl. Osuigwe ended the year with three doubles titles. Osuigwe has tennis in her blood, being the daughter of coach Desmond Osuigwe, under whom she trains at the IMG Academy in Florida. She is the seventh different US girl to be named World Champion, and third in six years after CiCi Bellis in 2014 and Taylor Townsend in 2012.

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