page_title: Sloane Stephens
section_title: Junior career
hierarchical_section_title: Sloane Stephens / Junior career
caption_attribution_description: U.S. Open Juniors Sunday, Sept. 6, 2009
context_page_description: Sloane Stephens is an American professional tennis player. She achieved a career-best ranking of No. 3 in the world after Wimbledon in 2018. Stephens was the 2017 US Open champion, and has won six WTA singles titles in total.
  Born to athletic parents with backgrounds in collegiate swimming and professional American football, Stephens was first introduced to tennis at the club across the street from her house in Fresno, California. Her stepfather was a competitive recreational tennis player and served as her primary inspiration for beginning to play the sport. Stephens moved to Florida to train at a tennis academy, ultimately working with Nick Saviano for many years. She developed into a promising junior player, reaching a career-high ITF junior ranking of world No. 5 and winning three out of four Grand Slam girls' doubles titles in 2010 alongside her partner Tímea Babos.
  While still just 19 years old, Stephens rose to prominence at the 2013 Australian Open with a semifinal run highlighted by an upset of then-world No. 3 Serena Williams.
context_section_description: Stephens began competing in low-level events on the ITF Junior Circuit in 2006 at the age of 13. Her first breakthrough result came at the US Open in 2008, where she reached her first doubles final at a Grand Slam with Mallory Burdette. She then finished the year with a semifinal appearance at the high-level Orange Bowl tournament, a Grade A event.
  Stephens began 2009 by winning her first two tournaments of the year, the Grade 1 USTA International Spring Championships and the Grade A Italian Open. Following these big titles, she only played in the remaining junior Grand Slam events in 2009 and 2010, while also skipping the Australian Open.
  At the French Open, Stephens extended her main-draw win streak to 16 matches in a row to start the season, despite needing to qualify for the main draw, before losing to French junior Kristina Mladenovic in the semifinals. Mladenovic ended up winning the tournament, and would also defeat Stephens in their next encounter at the Wimbledon quarterfinals. These results brought her to a career-high junior ranking of No. 5 in the world. During the US Open, she left New York after her first match to attend her biological father's funeral in Louisiana. She returned to play and win her next match, but ultimately lost in the third round.
  In 2010, Stephens partnered with Tímea Babos to win the doubles title at all three majors in which they participated. They became just the second pair of girls to win three Grand Slam tournament doubles titles in one season after Corina Morariu and Ludmila Varmužová in 1995. Stephens also reached at least the quarterfinals in each of the singles events. Her best singles result that year was a Grand Slam semifinal at the US Open, where she lost to Daria Gavrilova in a third set tiebreak.
caption: Stephens at the 2009 US Open
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