Australian Open Junior Championships

Overview

The Australian Open Junior Championships returns in 2022 after the 2021 edition was cancelled as a result of the challenges created by the pandemic and travel restrictions into Australia.

The last event in 2020 saw Andorra’s Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva and France's Harold Mayot ​crowned champions. Jimenez Kasintseva won the Australian Open girls’ title on her Junior Grand Slam debut aged just 14, defeating Poland's Weronika Baszak 5-7 6-2 6-2 to become the youngest junior Grand Slam champion since Coco Gauff at 2018 Roland Garros.

Mayot also won his first Junior Grand Slam title in the boys' singles event, defeating fellow Frenchman Arthur Cazaux 6-4 6-1 on Rod Laver Arena in the first all-French junior boys’ final at a major since the 2004 Australian Open.

HISTORY

The Junior Australian Open is the oldest of the Grand Slam junior draws having established a boys' competition in 1922. At this stage it wasn't designated as one of the majors and only reached this status two years later in 1924. A girls' draw was further added in 1930. The competition became known as the Australian Championships in 1927 and then finally the Australian Open in 1969.

The early years of the junior competition were dominated by the host nation with the first non-Australian winner in either draw occurring in 1954 when Billy Knight from Great Britain took the boys' title.

The original venue was the Warehouseman’s Cricket Ground in Melbourne. The tournament went on to be held in numerous cities around Australia and New Zealand before it permanently settled in Melbourne in 1972, first at Kooyong LTC and then, from 1988, at the purpose built Flinders Park, now known as Melbourne Park, where it remains today.

Past Winners

A number of Australia's greatest players have won the Junior Australian Open including Ken Rosewall (1950, 1952), while Pat Cash was a runner-up in 1981 and Todd Woodbridge made the final in 1987 and 1989 only to lose out at the last hurdle. Victoria Azarenka is the latest player to have made the step from winning the event at the junior level in 2005, before storming the women's draw in 2012 to take her maiden Grand Slam title, before defending it in 2013.