The Former Child Stars Auditioning for the Biggest Stage in Tennis

Australian Open qualifying was scattered with junior champions of yore who haven't quite made it to the main event.

MELBOURNE, Australia — As anyone who has watched one will know, a junior Grand Slam final looks and feels like a dress rehearsal for the big show. The set design is the same, the costuming is similar, and at the end there’s a trophy awarded that declares the recipient as champion of the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, or U.S. Open.

But at the Australian Open this week, I was struck by how many of the stars of those past dress rehearsals were back auditioning to simply be members of the chorus, performing their hearts out in the cattle call that is a Grand Slam qualifying draw.

Among the 256 players in the qualifying draws for the 2025 Australian Open, there were 12 men who were once top amongst boys, and 13 women who were once the best of the girls. Some of them have never made it close to the top; others, like 38-year-old Richard Gasquet, were still trying to squeeze every last drop out of their careers more than two decades after being a promising prodigy.

Roaming the courts of qualifying this week, I spoke to many of these former junior champions for Bounces about what those early star-making wins meant—and didn’t mean—for their future. They ranged in age widely, from recent champs like 18-year-old João Fonseca and 17-year-old Renata Jamrichova, to a 30-year-old father-of-two who is still grinding away nearly thirteen years after winning the junior French Open in hopes of finally winning his first main draw match at a major.

“[The juniors] were, like, ‘Probably I'm going to lose to her.’
But right now, they don't give a shit that I won the junior Slams.”
-2024 Australian Open junior champ Renata Jamrichova

You’ll read interviews with a half-dozen of them, see tables of results showing the current status of all 21st Century major champions, and more…all beyond the paywall below. I think it’s going to be worth it for this and the rest of the Australian Open coverage to be a subscriber here at Bounces, I promise, and I appreciate your support!

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