No. 14 seed Jeline Vandromme continued her superb summer form by capturing the US Open girls’ singles title with a 7-6(2), 6-2 defeat of qualifier Lea Nilsson in the final, coming back from 4-2 down in the first set.
Watched by compatriot and former World No. 1 Kim Clijsters, 17-year-old Vandromme became the first Belgian girl to lift a major trophy since An-Sophie Mestach at the 2011 Australian Open, and first to do so at the US Open since Kirsten Flipkens in 2003. She is the fifth Belgian girls’ singles Grand Slam champion in the Open Era following Mestach, Flipkens, Justine Henin (Roland Garros 1997) and Nancy Feber (Wimbledon 1993).
A classically-trained pianist who was a student at the Conservatory of Bruges, Vandromme has said that only one thing links her two passions: “You have to be disciplined in both things, and you have to practice a lot, every day,” she told itftennis.com this week. “I don’t know for sure that piano helps tennis, but I love playing both.”
The discipline has been on show in her nascent tennis career lately, as Vandromme is now on a 23-match winning streak at all levels. She spent July and August playing the ITF World Tour, collecting three consecutive titles — the Roehampton ITF W35 as a qualifier, then back-to-back ITF W15s in Monastir — and cutting her PIF WTA Ranking from No. 754 to No. 495 in four weeks.
She’s also now won 33 sets in a row. Vandromme last dropped a set in the Roehampton final, in which she defeated Shi Han 7-6(4), 5-7, 7-5. Following that, she won both Monastir events and the US Open title without the loss of a set. Her run in Flushing Meadows included a 6-3, 6-2 third-round defeat of Australian Open girls’ finalist Kristina Penickova and a 6-3, 6-2 semifinal win over Roland Garros girls’ finalist Hannah Klugman.
Vandromme conceded only 22 games in five matches to reach the final, but faced her stiffest opposition with the title on the line. Nilsson was the first player to stretch her as far as a tiebreak since the Roehampton final — appropriately, given the 17-year-old Swede’s battling run this week.
After losing a 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 heartbreaker to Nadia Lagaev in the third round of the Repentigny junior event in Canada the previous week, Nilsson caught a 7 a.m. flight to New York the following morning — and had to play her first qualifying match that afternoon, which she eked out 5-7, 6-1, [10-7] over Ireland O’Brien.
But she still had the energy to dish out two of the main draw’s biggest upsets, taking out No. 1 seed Julieta Pareja 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 in the third round and defending champion Mika Stojsavljevic 0-6, 6-1, 6-1 in the semifinals. Nilsson was the first Swedish girl in a junior Slam final since Sofia Arvidsson at the 2001 Australian Open, and was bidding to become the first qualifier ever to win the US Open junior title. She has a WTA ranking of No. 992.
A nip-and-tuck first set saw Vandromme struggle to find the balance between power and safety as Nilsson delivered solid defense with a few excellent net forays mixed in. Vandromme fired five winners — nearly half her first-set total of 11 — in the first game alone but was nonetheless broken, and reined in her aggression to reel Nilsson in from 4-2 down.
Once Vandromme had the tiebreak under her belt, though, she loosened up and showed what she was capable of in full flow. Boasting a major weapon in her forehand, Vandromme danced around it with beautiful footwork to unload repeatedly and raise her tally of winners to 25.
“I think I played a very good opponent, to start with,” Vandromme told press afterwards. “Lea played an incredible week and today also. I had a bit of nerves before the match, I would say, but I think I handled them good. I tried to play my level, my game, and it worked out really great.
“I just tried to not focus on the fact that I’m 2-4 or 0-2 down. I just tried to focus on every point, every shot that I make, on my plan, and my tasks on court. Then I kind of forgot the score. I mean, I’m just trying to play every point and doing what I have to do. Then I don’t have extra pressure or I don’t feel the negative emotions coming up when I’m down.
“Of course you start to feel the legs a bit when you go far into the tournament, like in the final now. But when the adrenaline takes over, then all I just felt was energy. Yeah, the will to win every point was so big that I don’t feel any fatigue or pain.”
Vandromme didn’t have much time to celebrate her singles win: it was into the shower, a change of clothes and a quick bite to eat on the exercise bike before she was back out on court for the girls’ doubles final alongside Lithuania’s Laima Vladson as the No. 4 seeds.
However, Vandromme was denied the double crown by Czech sisters Alena and Jana Kovackova, the No. 3 seeds, who raced to a 6-2, 6-2 victory. It’s a second major girls’ doubles title for 17-year-old Alena, who was the 2023 Wimbledon champion alongside Laura Samson, and a first for her younger sister Jana.
The 15-year-old becomes the first 2010-born player to claim a junior Grand Slam title; she’s already the highest-ranked 2010-born player at No. 642, having compiled a 24-7 pro record including two ITF titles this year. Alena, meanwhile, is ranked at No. 640, and qualified for her first WTA main draw in July in Prague.
The Kovackovas are the second sister act to lift a Grand Slam girls’ doubles trophy this year after American twins Annika and Kristina Penickova were victorious at the Australian Open — defeating the Kovackovas in the final — and the first to do so in US Open history.