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It’s the week after the US open. And the top players don’t play, or went on their way to Shenzhen, China for the Billie Jean King Cup Finals, or just wanted a breathing break.
When those weeks come up, it is really difficult for the tournaments. It is also a golden opportunity for other players to grab the day and earn some big points.
And that’s what happened.
In Guadalajara, 17-year-old American Iva Jovic won the WTA 500 title, with the points and prize money with which.
In Sao Paulo a tournament that appeared on the schedule earlier this year and marks a return from the WTA to that city for the first time in more than 20 years, wins an even larger longshot: the 19-year-old French player Tiantso (Sarah) Rakotomanga Rajaonah wins the WTA 250 tournament.
It was only her third event at WTA level.
Let’s meet these two.
The resident of San Diego will be December 18, December 18 (this is about everything that the WTA currently has on her – for a player in top 75, not so surprising but still disappointing).
So she’s still from Junior Age. But she left that after making the semi -final in the US Open Juniors last year. She also made the semi -final on Junior Wimbledon, the final in Roehampton the week before, the quarters in Junior Roland Garros and the semi -finals of the Orange Bowl in December 2023.
(In particular, she lost to the Canadian Victoria Mboko, who is a year older, in the third round of the US Open Juniors in 2022).
So, in short, she never ‘received’ her junior slam. She has not won big titles. But she made a good run in almost all the tournaments she played and reached the number 2 junior ranking after last year’s US Open Juniors.
Jovic played her first pro event in July 2022, when she was still 14. And she made the final.
By March 2023 (15) she played a junior event in Indian Wells and got a taste of the big place. This is what she looked like then.
She didn’t win; She made the semi -final and then lost by rule Wimbledon Junior Champion Clervie Ngounoue.
Jovic won her first pro title, a $ 25k in Rescue California, in October 2023. She was on a wildcard – and she still had no ranking.
She first appeared on the charts on March 20, 2023, at no. 1064.
By March 2024, ranked no. 659, she received a wildcard in the qualification at Indian Wells and only received three games from Taylor Townsend. By August, with a wildcard in the main table at the US Open, she stroked Magda Linette in the first round before she brought Ekaterina Alexandrova to 7-5 in the third set in the second round. That helped her break into the top 300.
Running through the American ITFs that gave her the mutual wildcard of the USTA, and a main-drawing place on the Australian Open 2025.
Here she practices before the tournament with the Canadian Leylah Fernandez.
Jovic defeated Clay-Courter Nuria Parrizas Dias in the first round before Elena Rybakina took care of business.
The brackets were still one thing.
At Indian Wells she defeated another Wildcard Julia Grabher in the first round before she brought no. 6 Jasmine Paolini to 6-3 in the third in the second round.
That brought her to the top 150, and she earned another Wilsta Wild Card in Roland Garros this spring.
A few weeks later she won the WTA 125 on grass in Ilkley and beat the Canadian Rebecca Marino in the final. That brought her to the top 100 for the first time.
Then qualifying at Wimbledon, where she won three games and qualified for the first time for a main table without a wildcard.
It is a mouthful: TiantSsoa (Sarah) Rakotomanga Rajaonah, born in Madagascar (as you can probably see by the name), and follows in the proud footsteps of Zarah Rajafimahatratra. Since birth a French citizen, she arrived in France of six years old. She usually trains Plaisir in the city.
A clay enthusiast, she jumped for the first time in the top 200 after making the final of an ITF of $ 100,000 in Biarritz, France in June, where she had to beat no one in the top 300.
But at no. 214 she was able to get directly into the draw at the Sao Paulo Open. And after almost going out in the first round, she did not drop the rest of the road.
(“Almost” the Topics-Rakotomanga had fallen 5-0 in the third set and saved three match points).
She placed victories more than five players with higher rankings. EN-Qua ranking it was certainly not a much easier road than Jovic in Guadalajara had.
Although Jovic generally played many more experienced players.
Only three weeks ago, Open Court saw most of her first round match in qualifying at the US Open, which was only her second major and the first in her own ranking. She received a wildcard in Roland Garros earlier this year.
(We have a nice piece about that match on Open Court tomorrow. Look at it).
The funniest part of that competition was that an older man in a wheelchair, who was right by the fence, both she and her opponent Guiomar Maristany performed about which countries they came. Exactly while they prepared their rackets and preparing themselves to go for the coin throw and try to focus.
Eventually they both answered him. (That’s the first photo in this photo gallery).
This was just Rakotomanga Rajaonah’s third main drawing at WTA level: Roland Garros this year, and the WTA 250 in Rouen in April (where she qualified and made the quarterfinals). Given how many French players get wildcards in so many events, it is quite clear that they are outside the “favorites” circle.
It will be interesting to see where she is going.
Jovic and Rakotomanga belong to four teenagers who have won WTA titles this year: Mirra Andreeva in Dubai and Mboko in Montreal are the other two.
Jovic is the youngest of them.
She jumps again in the WTA ranking on Monday – to no. 36 and certainly within reach to think about being sown in Melbourne in January.
That is still a long way of going on the Usta Wild Card.
As far as Rakotomanga is concerned, she is the second French woman to make an unexpected splash this season, after Lois Boisson was a surprising semi -final at Roland Garros.
This effort, as it was that far from home, and at a smaller event, should mean that the spotlights on her are not as fierce as it was on Boisson.
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