Former junior No.1 and 2017 Roland Garros Girls’ Singles champion Whitney Osuigwe notched her maiden WTA victory on Thursday at the Miami Open, winning a battle of wild cards with Mari Osaka 6-2 6-4.
The American broke serve six times in the 80-minute encounter and advances to face compatriot Danielle Collins, who is seeded 25th, in the second round.
“At the end of the year I want to be competing with top players and I think for now I just need to keep developing until I get to that point,” Osuigwe told Tennis Channel in an interview after the match.
Osuigwe’s father Desmond, who hails from Nigeria, was a touring pro who has since settled down as a coach at the IMG Academy at Bradenton where Osuigwe trains, but coach Roger Anderson took the reins when the 16-year-old needed an on-court coaching session on Thursday.
“My dad has gotten me to the place where I am today and without him I wouldn’t be here but with your dad obviously there’s a lot of emotion and a lot of tension for us we just thought it would be better to have Roger, who is able to separate that and just tell me what I need to do, come out on court,” Osuigwe said.
Osuigwe says she loves the clay more than any other surface, and her biggest strengths are her movement and her forehand. She became the first American to win the Roland Garros Girls' Singles title in 28 years (Capriati, 1989) when she defeated American Claire Liu in the final in 2017.
Osuigwe has made a dent in the challenger ranks, winning an 80K title in Texas last year and reaching the quarter-finals at a 125K in Houston, which helped her claim the USTA’s wild-card berth into the Australian Open, where she fell to Bianca Andreescu 6-3 in the third in first-round action.