Tjen, Jimenez Kasintseva, Pareja and more

Eight players will make their Grand Slam main-draw debuts at the 2025 US Open — one direct entrant, four qualifiers and three teenage American wild cards. Get to know them here:

Alyssa Ahn (USA)

The US Open wild card on offer to the Billie Jean King Girls’ Nationals U18 champion has previously been a springboard to future Top 50 success for the likes of Sofia Kenin, CiCi Bellis, Lauren Davis and Shelby Rogers. This year, 18-year-old Alyssa Ahn earned it with a title run that included a quarterfinal upset of top seed Akasha Urhobo, a four-hour 6-1, 6-7(1), 7-5 nail-biter over Alexis Nguyen in the semifinals, and a 6-1, 6-2 win over Maya Iyengar in the final. Ahn, who also won the U16 division in 2022, became the seventh player in tournament history to win both the U16 and U18 titles, and the first since Davis (2008–11).

“I would be lying if I said the pressure was easy to navigate,” Ahn said after the final. “As I got further into the tournament, I faced a balance of reassurance as I found the peak of my game, as well as pressure that the US Open wild card and national title was now closer than ever.”

To date, Ahn — who is an incoming freshman at Stanford University — has played the bulk of her junior and professional tennis in her native California. She played her first WTA qualifying draw as a wild card in San Diego in 2023, falling to Claire Liu in three sets. This year, she also reached her first professional final at an ITF W15 in San Diego, part of the 21-8 record in 2025 that has seen her raise her ranking to No. 717 this week. Ahn will open against No. 19 seed Elise Mertens.

Valerie Glozman (USA)

This year’s US Open wild cards are a success story for Stanford University. As well as incoming freshman Ahn, sophomore player Valerie Glozman earned her spot in the main draw by winning the American Collegiate Wild Card Playoffs in June, defeating Mary Stoiana 7-6(8), 6-3 in the final.

Glozman, 18, has had a successful history with US Open wild cards. She received a qualifying wild card in each of the past three years, and won a round each time. In 2022, as a 15-year-old playing the first professional-level match of her life, she upset former No. 69 Dalila Jakupovic 6-3, 7-6(6); the following year, she knocked out former No. 35 Olga Govortsova 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-1; and last year, she defeated then-No. 123 Bai Zhuoxuan 6-1, 6-7(5), 6-2 for a career-best victory.

Seattle native Glozman, the daughter of a Ukrainian father and a mother from Chinese Taipei, has focused on her college career — meaning those three US Open qualifying appearances make up nearly half of her seven professional tournaments to date. She is currently ranked No. 899, and will play Suzan Lamens in the first round.

Hina Inoue (USA)

Hina Inoue entered the qualifying draw ranked No. 218 — originally announced as a wild card, she made the cut directly after withdrawals. Nonetheless, she made it through to the main draw without the loss of a set against Lauren Davis, Simona Waltert and Lucrezia Stefanini.

Inoue’s success builds on a positive 2024 season, in which she compiled a 64-25 record and cut her ranking from No. 518 to No. 248. That included her two biggest titles to date at the Tianjin ITF W35 and Guiyang ITF W50, as well as qualifying for her first WTA main draw in Hong Kong. In 2025, she has competed at Grand Slam qualifying level for the first time — the US Open marks just her third such competition after making her debut at Roland Garros. Inoue will face former World No. 1 Victoria Azarenka in the first round.

Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva (AND)

Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva has made history for Andorra this week, becoming the first player from the tiny Pyrenean principality — population just over 87,000 people — to reach a Grand Slam main draw. She’s the second woman this year who has become the first from their country at this level, following fellow 2005-born Alexandra Eala of the Philippines at Roland Garros.

Like Eala, Jimenez Kasintseva has been trailblazing for her career. In 2020, she claimed the Australian Open junior title at the age of just 14 — she was the youngest player in the draw — and the following year, became the first Andorran to compete in a WTA main draw when she received a wild card for Madrid. In 2022, she reached her first WTA quarterfinal in Seoul, and hit her career high of No. 121 later that year.

Injuries contributed to a slump in form in 2023, which saw Jimenez Kasintseva’s ranking sink to No. 384 by November. But she’s been steadily rebuilding it ever since. This year has seen her reach the first two WTA 125 finals of her career, in Antalya and Makarska, and her ranking is back up to No. 132 this week. And though she’s still only 20 years old, Jimenez Kasintseva managed to successfully navigate a Grand Slam qualifying event for the first time at her 14th attempt (having previously made the final round twice, at Wimbledon 2022 and the Australian Open 2023). She did so in battling style, defeating Alexis Nguyen, Astra Sharma — from a set and a break down — and another former junior No. 1, 17-year-old Emerson Jones.

In the main draw, Jimenez Kasintseva will face Maya Joint in the first round.

Julieta Pareja (USA)

Just 16 years old, Julieta Pareja’s story has already taken her from the public courts of Carlsbad, California to the World No. 1 spot in the junior rankings. Julieta and older sisters Antonia and Raquel didn’t learn the game in a country club or academy setting — “different than normal top juniors”, as Antonia has put it. 

While Antonia and Raquel both made it to college tennis teams, Julieta’s talent was quickly evident. She won the fifth professional event that she played, an ITF W15 in Rancho Santa Fe last June. As a qualifying wild card at last year’s US Open, she upset Kayla Day and Lucrezia Stefanini to make the final round.

With Colombian heritage and a large extended family there, it was fitting that her tour-level breakthrough came in Bogota this April. As a qualifying wild card ranked No. 550, she became the first 2009-born player to win a tour-level match — then went all the way to the last four. That made Pareja the youngest player to make a WTA semifinal since Coco Gauff won Linz 2019, and pushed her ranking up to her current No. 338.

Pareja’s junior accomplishments were modest until this year — she ended 2024 at No. 67 — but she’s been excelling at that level too in 2025. A 35-5 record, including a run to the Wimbledon final, sealed her ascent to the top spot in July. Her Grand Slam debut in New York will be a stern test, though: having never previously faced an opponent ranked in the Top 90, Pareja will take on No. 9 seed Elena Rybakina in the first round.

Antonia Ruzic (CRO)

Back in 2023, Antonia Ruzic’s Grand Slam qualifying debut was a brutal one — a 3-6, 6-2, 7-6[10] loss to Brenda Fruhvirtova at Roland Garros from match point up. The Croatian didn’t get past the second round of Grand Slam qualifying in her next six appearances, either — but after steady improvement over the past two years, she’s been able to bypass that stage to rise to No. 89 in the rankings and gain direct entry to the US Open.

In 2024, Ruzic reached the Monastir quarterfinals on her WTA main-draw debut, as well as capturing three ITF W50 trophies to cut her year-end ranking from No. 268 to No. 145. Two ITF W75 titles followed this year, in Trnava and Maribor, and she cracked the Top 100 for the first time in June.

The 22-year-old’s clean-hitting game has continued to pay dividends at higher levels over the past month. The North American hard-court swing has seen her notch her first two Top 50 victories, over Anastasia Potapova in Montreal and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in Monterrey — the latter paving the way to her first WTA 500 quarterfinal. All that makes for positive form to take into her first-round match against Taylor Townsend at the US Open.

Darja Semenistaja (LAT)

At 16, Darja Semenistaja was outside the Top 300 in the junior rankings, coachless and unsure of her future in the sport. As a last resort, she persuaded her parents to buy a ball machine. For the next four months, she told the Tennis Legend podcast last year, she practised intensively with it, improving her game enough that she was able to play the junior Grand Slam events in 2019.

Now 22, Semenistaja’s transition to the professional circuit has been one of steady, consistent improvement — and a remarkable record in finals. In 2021, she swept up seven ITF W15 titles; three ITF W25 titles followed in 2022, and in 2023 she won three ITF W60s and an ITF W40. Since then, she’s stepped up another level, claiming her first two WTA 125 titles at Mumbai 2024 and La Bisbal d’Empordà 2025. In total, Semenistaja’s record in ITF and WTA 125 title matches is 17-2.

Semenistaja made her WTA main-draw debut at Austin in 2024, defeating Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva to reach the second round — a result that enabled her to hit her career high ranking of No. 106. She also made the final round of Wimbledon qualifying twice, in 2023 and 2025. But it’s taken her until her 11th Grand Slam qualifying event to make it to the main draw, with wins this week over Andrea Lazaro Garcia, Lizette Cabrera and Linda Klimovicova.

Now ranked No. 116, Semenistaja becomes the fourth woman representing Latvia to compete in a Grand Slam main draw, following Larisa Neiland, Anastasija Sevastova and Jelena Ostapenko. The latter two will also be playing in Flushing Meadows this week, meaning that for the first time ever, three Latvians will feature in one Grand Slam main draw. Semenistaja will start her campaign against Peyton Stearns.

Janice Tjen (INA)

This year has already seen two players parlay noteworthy winning streaks at ITF level into a big splash on the main tour — Roland Garros semifinalist Lois Boisson and Montreal champion Victoria Mboko. Could Indonesia’s Janice Tjen do the same?

A former college tennis standout at Pepperdine University, Tjen was unranked when she graduated with a degree in sociology last May. In the 15 months since, she’s won 100 out of 113 matches and captured 13 ITF trophies, climbing to a career high of No. 147 this week. She’s put together winning streaks of 20, 16, and 27 matches — the last, in May and June, also included 42 consecutive sets.

And Tjen has shown no sign of letting up at a higher level. Over the past month, she was runner-up at the Lexington ITF W75 and Landisville ITF W100. In her first ever tour-level qualifying draw this week, she did not drop a set against Varvara Lepchenko, Maja Chwalinska and Aoi Ito — the last of which was her first Top 100 victory.

Tjen, whose game revolves around an aggressive forehand and sliced backhand, is also putting Indonesia back on the tennis map. She’s the first Indonesian woman to compete in a Grand Slam main draw since Angelique Widjaja at the 2004 US Open, and just the seventh in the Open Era following Lany Kaligis, Lita Liem-Sugiarto, former No. 19 Yayuk Basuki, Romana Tedjakusuma, Wynne Prakusya and Widjaja. In the first round, Tjen will play No. 24 seed Veronika Kudermetova — her first meeting with a Top 50 opponent.

Previously:
Wimbledon 2025’s Grand Slam debuts: Ito, Branstine, Xu and more
Roland Garros 2025’s Grand Slam debuts: Mboko, Boisson, Eala and more
Australian Open 2025’s Grand Slam debuts: Lamens, Emerson Jones, Wei and more
US Open 2024’s Grand Slam debuts: Joint, Jovic, Shibahara and more
Wimbledon 2024’s Grand Slam debuts: Todoni, Stakusic
Roland Garros 2024’s Grand Slam debuts: Sonmez, Carle, Riera and more
Australian Open 2024’s Grand Slam debuts: Sun, Kessler, Starodubtseva and more
US Open 2023’s Grand Slam debuts: Ngounoue, Prozorova, Crawley
Wimbledon 2023’s Grand Slam debuts: Bouzas Maneiro, Bai, Naef and more
Roland Garros 2023’s Grand Slam debuts: Mirra Andreeva, Waltert, Shymanovich
Australian Open 2023’s Grand Slam debuts: Shnaider, Lys, Polina Kudermetova, and more
US Open 2022’s Grand Slam debuts: Erika Andreeva, Avanesyan, Stearns and more
Wimbledon 2022’s Grand Slam debuts: Yuan, Chwalinska, Kartal and more
Roland Garros 2022’s Grand Slam debuts: Noskova, Niemeier, Selekhmeteva and more
Australian Open 2022’s Grand Slam debuts: Zheng Qinwen, Bronzetti, Cristian and more
US Open 2021’s Grand Slam debuts: Navarro, Krueger, Parks and more
Wimbledon 2021’s Grand Slam debuts: Raducanu, Burrage
Roland Garros 2021’s Grand Slam debuts: Osorio, Liang, Gorgodze and more
Australian Open 2021’s Grand Slam debuts: Danilovic, Francesca Jones
Roland Garros 2020’s Grand Slam debuts: Tauson, Sherif, Zarazua and more
US Open 2020’s Grand Slam debuts: Gracheva, Montgomery, Baptiste and more
Australian Open 2020’s Grand Slam debuts: Fernandez, Trevisan, Cocciaretto and more
US Open 2019’s Grand Slam debuts: Wang Xiyu, Volynets, Bolkvadze
Wimbledon 2019’s Grand Slam debuts: Gauff, McNally, Flink
Roland Garros 2019’s Grand Slam debuts: Rybakina, Paolini, Samsonova and more
Australian Open 2019’s Grand Slam debuts: Swiatek, Badosa, Veronika Kudermetova and more
US Open 2018’s Grand Slam debuts: Muchova, Yastremska, Kalinina and more
Wimbledon 2018’s Grand Slam debuts: Ruse, Dart, Lapko and more
Roland Garros 2018’s Grand Slam debuts: Krejcikova, Dolehide, Jakupovic and more
Australian Open 2018’s Grand Slam debuts: Kostyuk, Kalinskaya, Wang Xinyu and more