Amanda Anisimova

On the pro tour, Anisimova defeated a top 150 opponent before turning 15. She won her first ITF pro circuit title less than a year later. She then rose to prominence at the 2018 Indian Wells Open where she scored her first top 10 victory, against Petra Kvitová, at the age of 16. Anisimova first cracked the top 100 in later that year. Her next breakthroughs came at the first two Grand Slam events of 2019. At the Australian Open, she upset No. 11 Aryna Sabalenka, one of the leading contenders for the title, to reach the fourth round. She then upset the defending champion and world No. 3 Simona Halep at the French Open to become the youngest semifinalist at the tournament in over a decade.

With her father Konstantin as her longtime coach and her older sister also an accomplished player, Anisimova began playing tennis at a very young age. Born in New Jersey, her family moved to Florida to give their children better training opportunities. As a junior, Anisimova was ranked as high as No. 2 in the world. She won the 2017 Junior US Open, as well as two other Grade A titles. She also became the first American finalist at the French Open girls' singles tournament in 14 years.

Anisimova achieved a career high ITF junior ranking of No. 2 in the world in 2016. Early in her junior career she entered the 2015 Abierto Juvenil Mexicano ranked outside the top 300, but unexpectedly won the high-level Grade A tournament at age 14. She continued to excel in 2016, winning the Grade 1 Copa del Café and reaching the final at the Grade A Copa Gerdau. On the strength of these results Anisimova was the No. 2 seed at the French Open. In her second career junior Grand Slam tournament, she became the first American finalist at the girls' event since Ashley Harkleroad in 2002 before finishing runner-up to Rebeka Masarova. During the summer she competed in the USTA Girls' 18s National Championship as the No. 5 seed and finished in 4th place.

As a 15-year-old Anisimova won two more big titles, the first at the Grade 1 Yucatán Cup in late 2016 and the second at the Grade A Copa Gerdau in early 2017 where she had been a finalist a year earlier. Following these titles, she played in only two more ITF junior tournaments that year, both of which were Grand Slams. She capped off her junior career by winning her first Grand Slam title at the US Open, where she defeated fellow American Coco Gauff in the final and did not drop a set during the tournament. Anisimova was also a member of the United States team that won the 2017 Junior Fed Cup, but did not play in the final tie due to illness.

In the middle of 2016, Anisimova received a wild card into US Open qualifying, her first professional tournament. She won her debut match against world No. 124 Verónica Cepede Royg at the age of 14, before losing in the following round. Following her junior title at the 2017 Copa Gerdau in February, Anisimova stayed in Brazil and played in an ITF $25K event in Curitiba. She reached her first final on the pro tour at the tournament, despite this being her first professional main draw. A few weeks later, Anisimova was awarded a wild card into the Miami Open, where she lost to Taylor Townsend in three sets in her WTA main draw debut.

Having skipped the clay-court season the previous year due to injury, Anisimova entered the Copa Colsanitas in Colombia without any match wins on clay at the WTA level. Nonetheless, she won the tournament for her first WTA title. As the sixth seed, she won four of her five matches in three sets, including the final against Astra Sharma. Anisimova closed out the clay-court season by becoming the youngest semifinalist at the French Open since Vaidišová in 2006. During the tournament, she defeated No. 11 Sabalenka again in the second round and then upset the defending champion and world No. 3 Simona Halep in the quarterfinals. She did not lose a set until the semifinals when she was defeated by the eventual champion and world No. 8 Ashleigh Barty despite coming from behind to win the first set after losing the first five games and needing to save two set points in the sixth game. With this result, she rose to No. 26 in the world.

During the clay-court season, Anisimova won the USTA French Open Wild Card Challenge by reaching back-to-back finals at the ITF $80K event in Indian Harbour Beach and the ITF $60K event in Dothan the following week. These results also helped her crack the top 300 of the WTA rankings. In her Grand Slam debut, she lost her first-round match at the French Open to Kurumi Nara. Nonetheless, she became the youngest player to participate in the main draw since Alizé Cornet in 2005. After forgoing the grass-court season, Anisimova continued to play on the ITF Pro Circuit. She broke into the top 200 by capturing her first career professional title at the $60K event in Sacramento towards the end of July while she was still 15 years old.

Anisimova's first two tournaments of the year were the inaugural Oracle Challenger Series 125K events at Newport Beach and Indian Wells. She qualified for both main draws, and her semifinal at Indian Wells helped her earn a main draw wild card into the WTA event there the following week. At the Indian Wells Open, Anisimova became the youngest player to reach the fourth round since Nicole Vaidišová in 2005. She defeated Pauline Parmentier for her first career WTA match win before upsetting No. 23 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and then No. 9 Petra Kvitová, who was on a 14-match win streak. Her run ended against No. 5 Karolína Plíšková. Anisimova was also awarded a wild card into Miami Open. She won her opening match against Wang Qiang despite injuring her right foot in the third set. This injury forced her to withdraw from the tournament and kept her out for four months. At the time, she had risen to a career-high ranking of No. 128 in the world.

Amanda Anisimova (/ə ˈ n ɪ s ɪ m oʊ v ə / ə-NIS -ih-moh-və; born August 31, 2001) is an American professional tennis player. She is the second-youngest player ranked in the top 100 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and has a career-high ranking of No. 21 in the world. Anisimova won her first WTA title at the Copa Colsanitas in April 2019 at the age of 17.