30 Mind-Blowing Facts Every Fan Needs To Know About Sloane Stephens

9 March 2019, 11:44 am EST By Ruby Karnick

Sloane Stephens, currently ranked No. 4, was the 2017 US Open champion, and has won six WTA singles titles in total. Here are some facts about the American professional tennis player:

Stephens was born on March 20, 1993, in Plantation, Florida, to Sybil Smith and John Stephens. Her mother is the Boston University Athletic Hall Fame and the first African-American to be named a first-team All-American swimmer. Her father was a Pro Bowl running back for the New England Patriots in the NFL.
At a tender age of 9, she was nudged in to tennis by her mother and stepfather in Sheldon Fresco at the Sierra Sports and Racquet Club. The family relocated to Boca Raton in Florida two years later, to train at the renowned Evert Tennis Academy and a year later she moved over to the Nick Saviano High Performance Tennis Academy.
She was separated from her biological father when she was 18 months old and did not meet him until the age of 13, when he expressed interest on being diagnosed with degenerative bone disease. She lost her stepfather to cancer in 2007 and her biological father in a car crash in 2009.
With tennis taking center stage, she began online homeschooling and practiced six days a week, four hours a day. She began competing in low-level events on the ITF Junior Circuit and made her mark at the 2008 U.S Open, where she reached her first doubles final at a Grand Slam, partnering Mallory Burdette.
In 2009, she won the Grade 1 USTA International Spring Championships and the Grade-A Italian Open tournament and when she reached the semifinals of French Open, her ranking rose to career high world junior No.5.She has to her credit 57 singles and 44 doubles victory.
In 2010 playing in the partnering Timea Babos, she won the girls’junior doubles title at the French Open, Wimbledon Championship and the U.S. Open to become the second pair of girls to achieve this feat in one season.
Though she made her professional debut in late 2007, she won her first professional title at a low-level ITF $10K event in Wichita, partnering Christina McHale. All along she was receiving qualifying wild card including U.S Open, in one such appearance she defeated world No.109 Melinda Czink of Hungary, 6-3, 7-5, while she was only 15 years old.
In March 2010, Stephen qualified for the Indian Wells Open to make her WTA debut event and recorded her first career main draw match, when she defeated Licie Hradecka of Czech Republic 7-6, 7-6,the lowest ranked at No.747 to win a main draw match at this event. She followed it up with another win in July at Swedish Open in Bastad to finish the year ranked at No. 198, a jump of 604 places.
In May 2011, Stephens won her first ITF title capturing the Camparini Gioielli Cup in Reggio Emilia, Italy. A few weeks later at French Open she qualified to the main draw for her Grand Slam debut but lost to Elena Baltacha. Her performance took her to a career best No.128 in the world.
At the 2011 United States Open she recorded her first Grand Slam match win when she overcame R.L. Jani of Hungary, and went on to beat the 23rd seed ShaharPe’er, of Israel, in the second round. With her performance she broke into top 100 of WTA ranking, the youngest at 18 years of age.

Starting in May 2012, she had some impressive results when as a qualifier she advanced to the second round of the Italian Open, a premier 5 tournamentsand a week later she reached her first WTA semifinals at the International de Strasbourg in France.
Stephens’s performances at the 2012 French Open and Wimbledon Championship helped her reach her career best ranking of No.38 at the end of the season. She produced her best result then when she reached the fourth round of French Open, and built on her momentum with third round appearance on her main draw debutat the Wimbledon Championship, upsetting 23rd seed Petra Cetkovska on the way.
She recorded one of her best victories in January 2013, at the Australian Open, when she defeated the 3rd seed Serena Williams to enter her first semifinals of Grand Slam event. She as the 11-to-1 underdog was down a set and break early in the second set, but pulled off a huge upset to end Williams, 20 match winning streak.
After a string of reverses she reached the fourth round of 2013 Miami and French Open, where she lost to Maria Sharapova. She continued her Grand Slam success at Wimbledon by making it to the quarterfinals, before losing to Marion Bartoli.
Stephens started the year 2013 ranked No. 38 and with string of good performance at the majors, she ended the year on career high world No.12. She along with Williams and Radwanska were the only three players to make it to the second week of all four Grand Slam tournaments in the season and was chosen as second alternate for the WTA Tour Championship.
After recovering from wrist injury, she had a decent run at the Australian Open and at Indiana Wells Open. In Melbourne, she reached the fourth round before going down to world No. 2 Victoria Azarenka, for the second consecutive year. Later in March following the disappointment at Doha and Dubai, she bounced back with her firstquarterfinals appearance at a Premier Mandatory event in Indiana Wells Open, upsetting No.13 seed Ana Ivanovic.
Though she reached the fourth round of the French Open, she had the earliest loss at the United States Open, upset in the second round by 96th ranked Johanna Larsson committing63 unforced errors in the match and slid to No.24 in the ranking.
After experiencing first round exit in two of the four tournaments including the Australian Open, in 2015, she reached the fourth round of Indian Wells, California, defeating the 13th seed Angelique Kerber and 22nd seed Svetlana Kuznetsova before losing to Serena Williams in three sets.
In the Miami Open in April 2015, she defeated the 17th seed Madison Keys in round two of ‘next generation’ matches for the U.S. women’s tennis. She went on to reach the quarterfinals overpowering Larsson and Bencic before losing to No.3 seed Simona Halep in straight sets.
Stephens best result in the 2015 season came at French Open, when she defeated Venus Williams on the way to her fourth round meeting with Serena Williams ending in hard fought loss for the third time in the season. She had earlier in May reached her second semifinals at the International de Strasbourg, also in France, defeating Jelena Jankovic and Coco Vandeweghe.

On August 09, 2015, she put an end to the unwanted designation of being the highest-ranked player without a WTA title, when she defeated Svetlana Kuznetsova and Samantha Stosur on the way for her first career WTA title.
On hiring a new coach Kamau Murray, her fortune changed for better in the 2016 season opener at the Auckland Open. Though she was forced to play the semifinal and finals on the same day due to rain interruption, she overcame Caroline Wozniacki and Julia Gorges for her second career title.
After adding the Mexican Open title to her kitty, she took on Daria Gavrilova, Daria Kasatkina, Angelique Kerber and the qualifier Elena Vesnina, for her third WTA title of the season at the Charleston Open, on April 10, 2016. She had won one match in her previous five main-draw appearances on Charleston’s green clay.
After the Olympics, Stephens, was diagnosed with a stress fracture. Though she was playing throughout the season with pain hoping the injury to heal itself, a CT scan confirmed a need for surgery. She was out of competition for over eleven months.
For several months during her recovery from foot surgery she joined the sport’s flagship American television network as a contributing reporter, providing analysis apart from interviewing fellow players at the WTA events. She also used this time to graduate with bachelor’s degree in communication studies from Indiana Uiversity East.
Post-surgery her ranking fell to as low as No. 957 in August 2017. But with her performance at the Canadian and Cincinnati Open, where she reached the semifinals defeating four top 50 players, Stephens climbed back into the top 100 of the WTA rankings.
Stephens was accepted into the main draw of the 2017 United States Open with the use of protected ranking. She created an upset starting with Dominika Cibulkova, Julia Goerges, Anastasija Sevastova and Venus Williams before defeating Madison Keys in the finals for her maiden Grand Slam tournament title.
She became the first American women other than Williams’ sisters to win a major title since Jennifer Capriati won the Australian Open in 2002. She also became the lowest ranked U.S. Open champion ever and the fifth lowest at any Grand Slam tournament. She ended the year ranked No.13, to be named WTA Comeback Player of the Year.
The Sloane Stephens Foundation was started to help build tennis courts and set up after school tennis program for underserved students. She has also worked with Soles 4Souls, a charity that collects new and used shoes to give to children in poverty.
She is dating United States national soccer team player Jozy Altidore, who was also one of her childhood friends during her days in Florida. She had previously dated fellow tennis star Jack Sock.