Destanee Aiava

Destanee Gabriella Aiava (born 10 May 2000) is an Australian professional tennis player. She has career-high WTA rankings of world No. 147 in singles, achieved on 11 September 2017, and No. 133 in doubles, set on 5 August 2024.

Aiava has won ten singles and fourteen doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit. She made her major main-draw debut after winning the 2016 U18 Australian Championships, which granted her a wildcard into the 2017 Australian Open. She thus became the first player, male or female, born in 2000 or later to participate in the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament.

Aiava was born in Melbourne to a New Zealand father of Samoan descent and a mother from American Samoa. Her mother, Rosie, was a professional kickboxer and rugby player who represented the Australian national rugby team and her father, Mark, was a professional powerlifter. In 2005, at four years of age, Aiava watched Serena Williams win the Australian Open final and was inspired to begin playing tennis.

In 2012, at the age of 12, Aiava represented Australia at Roland Garros in the Longines Future Tennis Aces Tournament. Competing against fifteen of the top under-13 female tennis players, Aiava won the tournament and the right to play alongside Steffi Graf in an exhibition match. The years following, Aiava played mainly on the junior circuit. In 2014, she won the Tecnifibre Tennis Central Championships and NZ ITF Summer Championships in New Zealand as well as Australian Internationals in Queensland and Victoria. At the age of 14, she won the U18 Canadian world ranking event in Montreal, Quebec.

In early 2015, Aiava made her professional debut at the Burnie International, after receiving wildcards into the singles and doubles draws, where she lost early in both. At the Launceston Tennis International, Aiava won her first pro main-draw match against Lu Jiajing. She also made the quarterfinals of a $15k tournament in Melbourne in April 2015. In March 2016, Aiava reached her first career final at a $25k tournament in Canberra which she lost, in three sets. In December 2016, she won the U18 Girls' Australian Championships and earned a wildcard into the 2017 Australian Open. She thus became the first player born in the year 2000 to play at a Grand Slam championship.

Aiava commenced the year by qualifying for the Brisbane International and her first appearance in a WTA Tour main draw. Aiava defeated Bethanie Mattek-Sands in the first round, before losing to two-time major champion and world No. 9, Svetlana Kuznetsova. Aiava made her major debut at the Australian Open as a wildcard, losing in round one to Mona Barthel.

In February, Aiava won the first ITF Circuit title of her career, winning the $25k event in Perth by defeating Viktória Kužmová in the final. The following month, she won another $25k title, this time in Mornington, beating Barbora Krejčíková in the final. In April, Aiava was named to the Australia Fed Cup team for the first time. In May, she reached the semifinals of the Open Saint-Gaudens, before losing in the first round of qualifying at the French Open. In June, Aiava lost in the final round of Wimbledon qualifying. In September, she reached the second round of qualifying for the US Open before being granted a wildcard into Tournoi de Québec, where she lost in the first round. In October, Aiava reached the final of the Canberra International. In December, she was unable to defend her girls' title, losing to Jaimee Fourlis in a reversal of the result from 2016. The following week, Aiava won the Australian Open Wildcard Playoff.

Aiava was awarded a wildcard into the Brisbane International where she lost in the first round to another wildcard entry, Ajla Tomljanović.