Last night and into this morning, two Americans, Iva Jovic and Learner Tien, stormed their way into the quarterfinals at the Australian Open in Melbourne—Jovic, 18, with a shock-and-awe win over veteran Yulia Putintseva, 6-0, 6-1; and Tien, who just turned 20, with a similar romp over Grand Slam champion and former world number-one Daniil Medvedev, 6-4, 6-0, 6-3.
For Jovic in particular, the ascent up tennis’s ranks has been dizzying. A year ago at this time, she was ranked 191st (she’s currently ranked 27th, though that will rise depending on just how far she makes it in Melbourne). But since the new season started, she’s gone 11-2—the best record in all of professional tennis—and breezed through the first set against Putintseva in a mere 53 minutes, dropping only nine points. In doing so, she’s reached her first major quarterfinal; become the youngest woman to reach the quarters in Australia since Venus Williams in 1998; and remained both the youngest woman in tennis’s top 100 and the youngest player still in the tournament. All this after notching her first win against a top-10 player—world number-eight Jasmine Paolini—in the previous round. (As it happens, in the second round of last year’s US Open, where this correspondent first saw Jovic play live, Paolini had utterly dominated her.)
Jovic grew up in Torrance, California and has been playing tennis from the age of five (she now lives in LA). She had wild success in both junior singles and doubles—she’s been playing doubles recently with the Canadian phenom Victoria Mboko—and debuted as a pro on the ITF tour in 2022. But if anything’s more impressive than Jovic’s rocket-like rise since then, it’s her attitude. She’s been continually level-headed and poised both through her matches and afterward, when evaluating them. (It can’t hurt that she’s been taking advice from her childhood tennis hero—and now friend—Novak Djokovic.)
Asked, after yesterday’s win, how daunted she might be by the prospect of facing world number-one Aryna Sabalenka in the quarters on Tuesday, Jovic made it clear that she’s not feeling any kind of “underdog mentality”: “I don’t feel like I have been playing outside of my comfort zone or outside of my normal level,” she said. “I have come from two other tournaments where I was playing every day and winning a lot of matches, as well—so this week and the level that I’m showing right now doesn’t really feel much different than that. It’s just another week that I’m winning more matches, which is nice to see.”
Currently ranked 26th, Tien, meanwhile, has for a year or two been tipped (along with Joao Fonseca, 19, from Brazil) as perhaps tennis’s Next Big Thing. He has a background similar to Jovic’s: Born in Irvine, California (his parents are refugee immigrants from Vietnam), he won his first tournament at the age of five, has been dominant on the juniors and Challengers tours, and he’s pulled off some wild-card and qualifier upsets (he beat Medvedev last year in Australia in the second round). His only rival, fitness- and movement-wise, is Carlos Alcaraz, though his serve is a weak spot.
With last night’s win, he becomes the youngest men’s quarterfinalist at the Australian Open since Nick Kyrgios in 2015 and the youngest American men’s quarterfinalist at any Grand Slam since Andy Roddick in 2002 at the US Open.
Up next for Tien: world number-three Alexander Zverev.
