Not every junior Grand Slam champion went on to have the career they were expected to.
Some of the notable Wimbledon junior girls champions since 2000 include Iga Swiatek, Ash Barty, Caroline Wozniacki and Jelena Ostapenko.
All four of these players have gone on to enjoy senior Grand Slam success, including both Barty and Swiatek winning Wimbledon.
That is not the case for Sofya Zhuk, the 2015 junior Wimbledon champion who retired from tennis at just 20 years old.
Sofya Zhuk won the junior Wimbledon title in 2015
Zhuk came into junior Wimbledon in 2015 as an unseeded player, with the Russian just 15 years old at the time.
Despite not being seeded, Zhuk would reach the final of Wimbledon without dropping a set, setting up a meeting against her compatriot Anna Blinkova.
Zhuk beat 12th seed Blinkova 7-5, 6-4 to win the final and become a junior Grand Slam champion at Wimbledon.
| Wimbledon Girls 2015 | Sofya Zhuk’s Result |
| First Round | Beat Ali Collins, 6-4 6-3 |
| Second Round | Beat Charlotte Robillard-Millette (7), 6-2 7-5 |
| Third Round | Beat Fanny Stollar (11), 6-4 6-1 |
| Quarter-final | Beat Anastasia Potapova, 6-4 6-3 |
| Semi-final | Beat Viktoria Kuzmova, 6-1 6-3 |
| Final | Beat Anna Blinkova (12), 7-5 6-4 |
At the time, Zhuk was just the second Russian girl to win Wimbledon after Vera Dushevina beat Maria Sharapova in the 2002 final.
Zhuk became a junior Grand Slam champion after her victory at Wimbledon in 2015, but she was retired from tennis just five years later.
Why did Sofya Zhuk retire at 20 years old?
Zhuk did not quite reach the same heights on the senior tour, and she never actually won a Grand Slam main draw match.
The two main draw matches Zhuk played at majors came at the US Open in 2017 and Roland Garros in 2019, where she lost in the first round to Yulia Putintseva and Laura Siegemund, respectively.
Zhuk only won two main draw matches on the WTA Tour in her career, both coming at Indian Wells in 2018 where she reached the third round after beating Alize Cornet and 18th seed Magdalena Rybarikova.
Who is the most shocking Grand Slam champion ever?
You never know what might happen…
However, one of the big things that prevented Zhuk from repeating these results was an ongoing back injury that ultimately forced her to retire in 2020.
When speaking about her retirement in an interview with Bild in 2023, Zhuk detailed the struggles she underwent during her playing career.
“My body needed rest. I was in so much trouble that even the doctors wouldn’t treat me,” said Zhuk.
“I don’t digest protein normally, so the discs in my vertebrae behave like those of a 60-year-old. I’ve always played in terrible pain, I loved tennis but I had to think about my health.”
As well as her junior Wimbledon victory, Zhuk also won six ITF titles in her career and reached her biggest final as a senior player at the WTA 125 tournament in Newport, where she lost to Danielle Collins.
Zhuk played the last match of her career after losing in the first round of Wimbledon qualifying in 2019, before officially announcing her retirement in 2020, when she was just 20 years old.
