Santa Barbara’s Kayla Day Wins US Open Girls Junior Title

Kayla Day has won her biggest title of her young career, the US Open Junior Girls’ Championship.

The 16-year from Santa Barbara defeated Victoria Kuzmova 6-3, 6-2 for her first ever Grand Slam title.

In her post-match press conference, Day was notified that onMondayshe would be the new International Tennis Federation No. 1 world-ranked junior girls player.

“These were like the best two weeks of my life,” said Day after the match. “Every day was great. I had so much fun every single day, and it was just a great experience overall.

Before Wimbledon Kayla Day told KEYT Sports that her biggest goal of the season was to win a Grand Slam event and she gets it done in New York.

Day became only the seventh American girl to win the US Open Junior singles title since Lindsay Davenport in 1992, a span of 24 years. She is also the first American to win here since 2012 (Samantha Crawford) and joins a list of champions that includes Grand Slam women’s champions Victoria Azarenka, Davenport and Jennifer Capriati.

Day is the first from Santa Barbara to win a junior singles title since Tim Trigueiro did it back in 1985 winning the boys title.

Day also played in the main draw of the US Open, beating Madison Brengle in the first round before losing to the ninth ranked player in the world, Madison Keys.

Day turns 17 later this month.

(Steve Pratt contributed to this article).