Maturity gives Andorra's Jimenez Kasintseva perspective in hunt for second girls' Grand Slam
© Loïc Wacziak/FFTThe spotlight shines a little brighter on Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva as the first junior major champion from a tiny nation in the Pyrenees, whose population could comfortably fit in the Stade de France.
Articulate and insightful, it is easy to forget Andorra’s most famous prospect is still only 15.
Sixteen months have passed since she became a surprise girls’ singles winner at Melbourne Park and the hype at home has only swelled since.
Only eight months ago, Jimenez Kasintseva arrived in Paris for a very different Roland-Garros. The world had changed dramatically since she departed Australia with the silverware, not to mention the fact she now held the junior world No.1 ranking.
Top seed for the second year running, the left-handed teenager reached the quarter-finals in Paris for the first time on Wednesday following a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Switzerland’s Sebastianna Scilipoti.
It was a markedly different campaign to that of 2020, when she fell in the second round.
“Last year I came with too many expectations. I only came to win,” Jimenez Kasintseva said. “Since I only played one Grand Slam, it was Australia and I won it.
“I thought it was just going to be easy that I would just win again. I didn't come in with the right mentality. I lost in the second round and after that I was very, very sad also because I lost my No.1 junior spot.”
The gifted left-hander – who cites fellow southpaws Rafael Nadal and Petra Kvitova as her idols – had just experienced her first taste of managing expectations.
The result was quite the wake-up call.
“I’d say that for me what was difficult was to manage all the pressure that I've had,” she said. “My development in juniors has been very, very fast – way too fast. I won my first ITF at 13 years of age, a Grade 5, which was actually against Sebastianna, the girl I played today, in the final.
©️ Loïc Wacziak/FFT“Honestly when I went to Australia I was very calm. I was just another player and I went to there with the mentality to compete in every match and give it all and obviously I gave the best tennis that I had in that one.
“But obviously when you're No.1 and you have all the expectations – the 14-year-old, she's good, she's the No.1, Australian Open – I had so many things in my head and I wasn't thinking about giving it on the court.”
Jimenez Kasintseva has grown to become more comfortable with the pressure that comes with being the top-seeded junior.
©️ Loïc Wacziak/FFTShe next meets her doubles partner, unseeded Czech Linda Noskova, for a semi-final berth in Paris.
“Since my run too fast, then [lockdown] obviously, didn't help, I started to speak more about my feelings with my team, sharing what's something that's complicated to me because I didn't know how to explain my pressure, my nerves,” she said. “I wasn't admitting that I had them but I did and now I'm managing a bit better, I hope I can continue like this.”
ROLAND-GARROS
19 May - 8 June 2025
