Alina Korneeva – the No. 1-ranked girl on the planet – is set to contest the 2023 Wimbledon Junior Championships with the hand of history on her shoulder.
Having won both the Australian Open and Roland Garros Junior Championships, the 16-year-old is bidding to become the first girl since Bulgaria’s Magdalena Maleeva in 1990 to claim three Junior Grand Slam titles in the same season.
No girl has ever topped the podium at the opening three Junior Grand Slams of a campaign, although the feat has been achieved previously with Stefan Edberg winning all four Junior Grand Slams in 1983 and Gael Monfils triumphing in Melbourne, Paris and London in 2004.
Unlike the girls event, there is no previous Junior Grand Slam singles winner in the boys’ draw at the Junior Championships with Juan Carlos Prado Angelo of Bolivia the highest-ranked player in the ITF World Tennis Tour boys’ rankings.
Prado Angelo, who has been supported in his professional ambitions by the Grand Slam Player Development Programme having received a Player Grant in 2022, proved a trailblazer at Roland Garros last month.
The 18-year-old became the first Bolivian to reach a Junior Grand Slam final, and while he will be among the leading lights again at Wimbledon.