Whitney Osuigwe


Whitney Osuigwe is an American tennis player.
She is the reigning ITF Junior World Champion and a former world No. 1 junior. Osuigwe also won the juniors 2017 French Open to become the first American to win the girls' singles event in 28 years.

Personal life

Osuigwe has been playing tennis at the IMG Academy since age 6, where her father Desmond has been a teacher at the academy since 1997 and acts as her primary coach. Desmond is from Lagos in Nigeria and played professional tennis events at the ITF Futures level before coming to the United States to attend college. Whitney has an older brother named Deandre who is a college basketball player and a younger sister named Victoria who also plays tennis.

Junior career

In June 2017, Osuigwe climbed to No. 2 in the junior rankings by dominating the clay-court events in the previous six months. She started by reaching the semifinals at the Orange Bowl in December and then won two Grade-1 clay-court tournaments in back-to-back weeks in February. Osuigwe capped off her dominance in this part of the season by winning the 2017 Junior French Open over fellow American Claire Liu. In doing so, she became the first American to win the girls' event since Jennifer Capriati in 1989, the fifth American champion overall, and the ninth youngest winner of the event at under 15 years and 2 months. This was also only the second time the final was contested between two Americans, with the other occurring in 1980.
Osuigwe would go on to finish the season as the No. 1 ranked junior in the world, for which she was named the 2017 ITF Junior World Champion. Furthermore, she then won the Orange Bowl before the year came to a close.
On August 12, 2018, Osuigwe won the USTA Girls 18s National Championships which earned her a wild-card entry into the main draw of the US Open.

Professional career

Osuigwe made her WTA main-draw debut at the 2018 Miami Open, losing to her fellow wild card and junior rival Claire Liu.
In January 2019, Osuigwe played alongside David Ferrer on the Spain team in the 2019 Hopman Cup, replacing Garbiñe Muguruza who was out due to injury. Osuigwe played only the mixed-doubles match, losing to the French team which consisted of Lucas Pouille and Alizé Cornet, 2–4, 2–4. In March, she entered the Miami Open main draw as a wild card, winning her first-round match against fellow wild card Mari Osaka, the sister of Naomi Osaka.

Performance timeline

''Only main-draw results in WTA Tour, Grand Slam tournaments and Olympic Games are included in Win–Loss records.

Singles

This table is current through the 2020 Australian Open.

ITF Circuit finals

Singles: 4 (2 titles, 2 runner-ups)

ResultW–LDateTournamentTierSurfaceOpponentScore
Loss0–1ITF Wesley Chapel, United States25,000Clay Francesca Di Lorenzo2–6, 6–1, 4–6
Win1–12018 RBC Pro Challenge – Singles|RBC Pro Challenge, United States80,000Hard Beatriz Haddad Maia6–3, 6–4
Win2–12019 Boar's Head Resort Women's Open – Singles|Boar's Head Resort Open, United States80,000Clay Madison Brengle6–4, 1–6, 6–3
Loss2–22019 LTP Charleston Pro Tennis – Singles|LTP Charleston Pro Tennis, United States100,000Clay Taylor Townsend4–6, 4–6

Doubles: 5 (2 titles, 3 runner-ups)

ITF Junior Circuit

Junior Grand Slam finals

Singles: 1 (1 title)

Doubles: 2 (2 runner-ups)

ITF Junior finals

Singles: 10 (7 titles, 3 runner–ups)

Doubles: 9 (4 titles, 5 runner–ups)