Sofia Kenin

Sofia Anna "Sonya" Kenin (born November 14, 1998) is an American professional tennis player. She has been ranked as high as world No. 4 in singles by the WTA, and No. 21 in doubles. Kenin was named the 2020 WTA Player of the Year, an award earned by winning the Australian Open and finishing runner-up at the French Open. She has won five singles and four doubles titles on the WTA Tour, the latter including the 2019 China Open and 2024 Miami Open partnering Bethanie Mattek-Sands.

Coached primarily by her father, Kenin developed into a promising junior player, reaching No. 2 in the world after winning the Orange Bowl at the age of 16 and finishing runner-up in the 2015 US Open girls' singles event the following year. She also won the USTA Girls 18s National Championship during that summer. Kenin made her debut in the top 100 of the WTA rankings in 2018 as a teenager. She won her first three titles in 2019 and finished the year just outside the top 10, being named the WTA Most Improved Player of the Year. With her title at the 2020 Australian Open, Kenin became American No. 1 and the youngest American to win a Grand Slam women's singles title since Serena Williams in 1999.

Sofia Kenin was born in Moscow, Russia, to Alexander and Svetlana Kenin. Kenin is Jewish, and was born in a Jewish family, and has a younger sister. Her family moved to the United States a few months after she was born. They had previously left the Soviet Union to live in New York City in 1987 but returned to Russia for Kenin's birth so that other family members could help raise her initially. Her mother had worked as a nurse in the Soviet Union, and her parents had only $286 when they first moved to the United States.

Kenin began playing tennis at the age of five, drawing inspiration from her father who had played recreationally. Her parents recognized her potential and arranged for her to begin training with Rick Macci in Broward County, Florida. Macci coached Kenin for seven years until she was 12. He remarked: "Back then [when Kenin was five], I came right out and said Sofia was the scariest little creature I’d ever seen. It was unique: the hand-eye coordination and her ability to take the ball immediately right after the bounce. I have a lot of kids do that, but it was almost like it was baked in already, even though she was little and the racket was actually bigger than her. The only player I’ve seen like that is former world No. 1 Martina Hingis." Kenin has also worked with Nick Bollettieri. Her primary coach had always been her father except from May 2021 to November 2021. Her childhood tennis idols were Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. Kenin particularly has praised Sharapova's fierce competitiveness.

Kenin had success in tennis at a young age, which garnered widespread attention in the tennis community and helped put her on the covers of tennis magazines. Kenin began playing in United States Tennis Association (USTA) girls' 10-and-under tournaments at the age of seven, and became the top-ranked player in Florida in that division. She later was ranked No. 1 in the USTA national rankings for each of the 12, 14, 16, and 18-and-under divisions. Kenin had the opportunity to interact with ATP and WTA tennis players as a young child, including hitting with Anna Kournikova at age seven, partnering with Jim Courier against Venus Williams and Todd Martin as part of an exhibition event, and receiving a tour of the Miami Open from Kim Clijsters.

Kenin reached a career-high of No. 2 in the ITF junior rankings. She began playing in low-level Grade-4 events on the ITF Junior Circuit in 2012 at the age of 13. After winning her first titles in both singles and doubles in 2013, she progressed to the Grade-1 level. Towards the end of the year, she made her Grade-A debut at the Orange Bowl, reaching the semifinals in singles and finishing runner-up in doubles with Kaitlyn McCarthy to Tornado Alicia Black and Naiktha Bains. Kenin made her junior Grand Slam debut in 2014, but only recorded one match win in singles while playing in the latter three events of the year. Following the US Open, Kenin represented the United States at the Junior Fed Cup along with CiCi Bellis and Black. The team won the tournament, sweeping Slovakia 3–0 in the final. Kenin went undefeated in her five matches, all in doubles. Her next breakthrough came toward the end of the year when she won the Orange Bowl, defeating Bellis and Ingrid Neel in the last two rounds.

Kenin built on that success in 2015 by winning the USTA International Spring Championships, a Grade-1 tournament. During the summer, she won the USTA Girls 18s National Championship as the No. 3 seed, defeating top-seeded Black in the final. With the title, she earned a wild card into the main draw of the 2015 US Open. Kenin also participated in the junior event at the US Open and finished runner-up to Dalma Gálfi, her best performance at a junior Grand Slam event. This result helped her rise to No. 2 in the world by the end of the year. Kenin continued to play on the junior tour in 2016 while primarily playing in professional events on the ITF Women's Circuit. At the US Open, she again produced one of her best results of the year, losing in the semifinals to Viktória Kužmová, after upsetting the top seed Anastasia Potapova in the previous round.

Kenin began playing low-level tournaments on the ITF Women's Circuit in 2013 and won her first two professional matches at the age of 14. With her wild card from winning the USTA Junior National Championship, she made her Grand Slam debut at the 2015 US Open, losing her opening match to Mariana Duque Mariño. The following year, Kenin won her first two ITF titles, the first at a $25k event in Wesley Chapel in Florida and the second at a $50k Sacramento Challenger in California. The latter title helped her win the US Open Wild Card Challenge to earn a wild card into the main draw of the US Open for the second time. At the US Open, she lost her first-round match to Karolína Plíšková, her only tour-level match of the year.