Kristina Penickova named ITF junior girls' World Champion as year-end No. 1
Sixteen-year-old Kristina Penickova won two ITF junior singles titles in 2025 and helped the U.S. junior Billie Jean King Cup team claim its fourth straight trophy, but her biggest honor of the year came Wednesday when she was named the ITF junior girls' World Champion.
Penickova earned the distinction by finishing the 2025 season as the junior girls' world No. 1, having debuted atop the rankings in October following her run to the title round at the 2025 ITF World Tennis Tour Junior Finals. She is the first American player to be named a junior World Champion since Whitney Osuigwe in 2017.
In a breakout season, Penickova reached the Australian Open girls' singles final in January before winning a J300 title in San Diego (the North American Regional Championships) in March and a J200 in Chuncheon, South Korea, in October. She also finished runner-up at a J500 Osaka, Japan, in addition to her Junior Finals run, and won all six matches she contested at the Billie Jean King Cup Junior Finals.
Penickova also won the Australian Open doubles title with twin sister Annika Penickova and the Wimbledon doubles crown with Czechia's Vandula Valdmannova.
At the pro level, she reached the singles final at the ITF World Tennis Tour W15 event in Monastir, Tunisia, in May and also competed in US Open qualifying as a wild card.
Kristina Penickova at the 2025 US Open. Photo by Brad Penner/USTA.
Penickova is joined by junior BJK Cup teammate Julieta Pareja in the year-end Top 10, with the Wimbledon girls' singles finalist ranked world No. 5. On the boys' side, junior world No. 6 Jack Kennedy and No. 7 Benjamin Willwerth are the top-ranked Americans.
Junior world No. 3 Lucy Heald and No. 5 Sabina Czauz lead the way for the U.S. in the girls' wheelchair rankings, while Charlie Cooper and Maximus Wong both close the year in the Top 10 of the boys' wheelchair rankings.
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