Emma Navarro's quick rise to No. 31

Note: This article was written shortly before Emma Navarro won her first WTA title, 2024 Hobart.

How did she do it?

Charleston’s Emma Navarro is the 31^st ranked women’s tennis player in the world.

Even Charleston veteran traveling pro Shelby Rogers hasn’t approached such a lofty spot in the Hologic WTA Tour rankings during her years on the pro tour.

Navarro is just 22 years old. She didn’t turn pro until the 2022 ITF $100K event at LTP Mount Pleasant (S.C.), played at her hometown club.

She started 2023 ranked 149th in the world and broke into the top 100 in May of 2023.

How has Navarro made such a big splash in her short time as a pro while jumping more than 100 spots on the WTA Tour rankings?

“I don’t know,” Navarro said during her recent time in Charleston, before heading to New Zealand to compete in the Auckland WTA Tour event the first week of the new year.

“I got a lot of help from a lot of really knowledgeable and experienced people around me, and I credit a lot of the success I’ve had to them. Definitely not an individual effort, but a lot of people coming together with a common goal and making it happen with a lot of sacrifice and dedication to what I am trying to achieve. So, definitely I have had a lot of help from the people around me.”

Navarro doesn’t slow down to enjoy being one of the four highest-ranked American women.

That’s really exciting for a young woman who spent much of her younger years drilling on the clay courts in Mount Pleasant.

“Yeah, it is exciting. I didn’t think I would be in this position ever if you asked four or five years ago. So, it’s pretty cool to be in this position now. I feel differently than I would have expected to feel.

“I still just feel like the same person, just a higher-ranked tennis player. Which I think is a good thing because it helps keep balance in my life. I don’t feel like some hot-shot or something. Yes, definitely I’ve come a long way, but I still feel excited and motivated to try to keep getting better.”

What is her goal for 2024?

“No ranking or result goals specifically. I just want to continue to improve myself as a player. There are certain areas I am working on improving and hopefully I can implement those into my game and feel confident and hopefully to just feel confident about who I am as a player,” she said.

Navarro left Charleston the day after Christmas to play tournaments in New Zealand and Tasmania to start the new year before heading to Melbourne to compete in her first Australian Open.

Her training in Mount Pleasant in December apparently paid big dividends in New Zealand as she played some of her best tennis. She scored three straight wins to advance to the semifinals in Auckland.

Navarro played awesome tennis in overwhelming 41^st-ranked Petra Martic of Croatia in Thursday’s Auckland quarterfinals 6-4, 6-3. The fourth-seeded Navarro jumped off to 3-1 and 4-0 leads in the two sets, but never gave Martic a chance to make the match real close, winning the last two games of both sets rather easily. Navarro out-hit the 5-11, 32-year-old Martic and committed only a few errors.

Living out of a suitcase

How difficult is it to pack her suitcase so often and head to another spot on the globe to compete in another tennis tournament?

“I use to not enjoy it that much and missed home. I would miss my family and friends, but I’ve learned to really enjoy it and I love the unpredictability from week to week. Yeah, I just love it. Every week is a new adventure. It keeps things interesting and fun. I have learned how to love it,” she said.

“I’m 22 and traveling the world with my mother (Kelly Navarro). It’s really awesome that she gives up her time to travel with me. I guess that’s a scenario that otherwise never would have happened if I wasn’t a professional tennis player.”

Putting together a traveling schedule

“It’s a team effort. We just put our big brains together and we try to come up with the best schedule,” she said.

Navarro is looking forward to returning to Charleston in the spring to play in the Charleston Open Credit One that her father, Ben Navarro, owns. He also owns the Cincinnati event.

“It’s really special to be able to play at home and be able to play in front of my family and friends and play on a court that I have been playing on for over 10 years, and feel at home.

“It (the green clay at both LTP Mount Pleasant and the Daniel Island COCO tournament) is probably my favorite surface. So, I love playing at home and looking forward to this coming April.”

What one thing made you so successful?

“It’s tough to pick one thing, But I think just consistency . . . maybe that is a little cliche but I think just being consistent day in and day out and bringing 100 percent effort every single day, and being very intentional about how I spend my time on and off the court, and not wasting any time during practice or in the gym and always having a purpose is what I am doing,” she said.

“Consistency with my game, but also with how I practice and work out with the energy and attitude I try to come to the court with every day is what matters.”

She calls her game “definitely a work in progress.

“But I definitely consider myself way more aggressive now (than when she turned pro). Serve always is a work in progress. I would love to get aces every time I serve, but that’s just not going to happen. I just want to continue to improve on what I have in addition to traveling the world with my mother.”

How she got to the top 31

Navarro now has a full team traveling with her that includes her mother and coach Peter Ayers. Physio Kelly Shannon is a newcomer to the team that also includes LTP Academy hitting partner Gaston Murray. LTP Academy general manager Patrick Hieber also supports the team at such events as the French Open, Wimbledon, the US Open and Cincinnati.

Of course, Navarro played the 2019 Junior Australian Open and made the doubles final with fellow LTP trainee/traveling pro Chloe Beck as well as winning doubles that year with Beck at the Junior French Open. Navarro also was a singles finalist at the Junior French Open, losing to current WTA Tour left-handed star Leylah Fernandez in the final.

Navarro’s biggest wins in 2023 were upsets of  then 12^th-ranked Madison Keys in Mexico and then ninth-ranked Maria Sakarri in the $780K San Diego tournament.

Navarro  earned more than half-a-million dollars last year playing tennis. Her best WTA Tour tournament for 2023 was a semifinal appearance in San Diego that produced her largest non-Grand Slam purse of more than $43K. The ITF circuit played a key role in Navarro’s 2023 surge in the rankings as she won five ITF tournaments, including two $100K events at LTP Mount Pleasant.

One of Navarro’s proudest moments overall came in the 2021 NCAA women’s national championships when she walked off with the NCAA singles title while just a freshman at the University of Virginia.

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James Beck was the 2003 winner of the USTA National Media Award  for print media. A 1995 MBA graduate of The Citadel, he can be reached at Jamesbecktennis@gmail.com.