American Clervie Ngounoue stormed to her first junior Grand Slam singles title with a 6-2, 6-2 win over unseeded Czech Nikola Bartunkova on Sunday at Wimbledon.
A two-time Grand Slam champion in girls’ doubles — at the 2022 Australian Open and earlier this year at Roland Garros — Ngounoue is the third American to win a girls’ singles Grand Slam title this decade, and second straight at Wimbledon. She joins Liv Hovde, last year’s Wimbledon winner, and Robin Montgomery (2021 US Open) in the achievement.
“It sounds so good,” Ngounoue said of the title of ‘Wimbledon champion.’ “I’m really excited that this is my first. It was a battle out there, as I was expecting one. Nikola is not an easy player at all. That’s the third time we’ve played, I believe, so it could have gone either way, as all the other times.
“But I’m really glad that I was able to pull through this time.”
The second-seeded Ngounoue didn’t lose a set through her title-winning run, and only lost five games in one of the 12 sets — in her 6-4, 7-5 quarterfinal win over No. 7 seed Sayaka Ishii of Japan.
“My brother actually just told me that, that I didn’t drop a set,” Ngounoue said. “I really think I was just focused on myself and trying to progress as a tennis player, knowing that this is not, like, the end, that this is only a part of the journey. This is to set me up for more.
“I think all of us juniors at these tournaments, these prestigious tournaments, are such good opportunities not only for recognition but us personally as tennis players to progress. It’s all to progress. It’s all a part of the journey.
“Really, I think it was a confidence thing for me, just try to focus on the next match, the next point, the next set, whatever was coming, trying not to look ahead of myself. But it was just really trusting myself and whatever I learned recently.”
Against Bartunkova, Ngounoue led nearly wire-to-wire, aside from seeing a 2-0 lead become 2-2 in the first set, and being broke in the first game of the second set. Ngounoue won the last four games of the opening set, and 12 of the last 14 points of the match. That final run was a microcosm of the match overall: Ngounoue his eight winners amongst those 12 points.
She, in fact, more than doubled Bartunkova’s total of winners, 27 to 11, in victory, and won seven of the 10 break points she created. Bartunkova struggled with her serve throughout the match, landing just 33% of her first serves over 1 hour and…