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We flash back to the 2022 US Open junior event with Mirra Andreeva, Victoria Mboko and Iva Jovic.

At the time, Andreeva was almost 15 1/2; Mboko had just turned 16, and Jovic – the youngest of them all – was still three months away from her 15th birthday.

Now, Andreeva (19 next month) and Mboko (19 1/2) are in the top 10. Jovic, just turned 18 last December, is in the top 20.

Here’s what they looked like then.

2022 results

There’s no guarantee that being a hotshot in the juniors will bring pro success. But there’s a good chance they will become viable pro players.

In these three cases, success came pretty early.

Andreeva, who got to No. 1 in the juniors in May, 2023, was the No. 14 seed that year. She had comeback wins in the rounds two and three – upsetting top seed Sofia Costoulas of Belgium in the third round. She was beaten 6-4, 6-0 by No. 10 seed Alexandra Eala in the quarterfinals.

Mboko peaked at No. 6 in the juniors, at the end of 2022; the 2022 junior US Open was her final junior event. She made the semifinal there as the No. 9 seed, losing to eventual champ Eala.

Jovic was a wild card, and upset No. 5 seed Solana Sierra (currently in the top 100) in an 11-9 third-set match tiebreak in the second round. She lost 6-2, 6-2 to Mboko in the second round. Her junior peak was No. 2, but it didn’t come for two more years, after her final junior tournament at the 2024 US Open.

(Andreeva and Eala beat Jovic and her partner in the first round of doubles, only to withdraw before their second round; Mboko and Canadian partner Kayla Cross retired after losing the first set of their first-round match).

Here were their WTA rankings at the time: Andreeva (No. 448), Mboko (No. 513), Jovic (didn’t come onto the WTA computer until March 20, 2023, at No. 1064).

**Eala ended up winning the 2022 US Open girls’ title. Even then, she was FAR more hyped than the other three, and was a fair bit older. But the others got to the top 20 before she did.**

Other rising stars? Not many

Also in the 2022 girls’ junior singles draw were No. 7 seed Diana Shnaider and unseeded Lanlana Tararudee, who just now is getting to the top 100.

That’s actually … not a big cast.

Typically there are more of the girls than the boys who rise quickly.

But the boys’ side had Alex Michelsen, Alexander Block, No. 1 seed Daniel Vallejo, who just joined the top 100 last week, Rei Sakomoto, Nishesh Basavareddy, Ignacio Buse, Martin Landaluce, Darwin Blanch and … Learner Tien.