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Teenage triumphs
Steven LynchAugust 27, 2014
CiCi Bellis won a match at the US Open aged 15 - who's the youngest to win there? asked Jennifer Mallory
CiCi Bellis, who was ranked 1,208 in the world at the time, upset the 12th seed Dominika Cibulkova - a grand slam finalist in Australia earlier this year - in the first round at Flushing Meadow.
Bellis was born in San Francisco, and the 'CiCi' comes from her forenames, Catherine Cartan. She was the first 15-year-old to win a match at the US Open since Anna Kournikova in 1996; the year before that Martina Hingis reached the fourth round, a month short of her 15th birthday, while Jennifer Capriati also reached the fourth round in 1990, aged 14.
The youngest US Open champion is Tracy Austin, who was just 16 years and nine months old when she won the first of her two titles in 1979. The youngest man to win it is Pete Sampras, a month past his 19th birthday in 1990 - he broke a 100-year-old record, undercutting Oliver Campbell who was also 19 in 1890.
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