Wakana Sonobe — 'One of the Biggest Diamonds that IMG Academy Has Ever Had,' 2025 Australian Girls Champion

Wakana Sonobe is the latest young lady to win a girls’ grand slam singles title. At 17 years old, she finished the tournament in style, winning 6-0, 6-1 in the finals. Florida Tennis just talked with Wakana and one of her coaches, Margie Zesinger, at IMG Academy in Bradenton to better understand what got her to and through the Australian Open finals.

We have to start with mentality. Training for years as a young kid in order to get to such a high level of tennis by 17 is hard work. Speaking with Wakana, and asking her about how she got through the harder periods, she noted that it was just important to enjoy the tennis. Her advice to any young kids trying to rise to such a level was to enjoy the process, enjoy the tennis. Sometimes, that’s easier said than done, but it seemed so evident and clear to Wakana that I assume that is indeed how she got so good — that kind of mentality is the hallmark of a champion.

Photo credit: IMG Academy

Mentor Margie Zesinger highlighted that Wakana always had a winning spirit. When she came to IMG Academy at 12 years old, she played in a tournament they organized for visiting young tennis players and she won the tournament. It was all about her will to win, and her cleverness finding a way.

Watching the girls’ Australian Open final, it was Wakana’s cleverness that stood out to me, and her serve. In the first question I asked her, about the advantages of playing as a lefty, she started with the serve. She had honed great technique, even at this young age, of sliding a slice serve way off the court and either not having to hit another ball in that point or getting an easy putaway from the result. The final was a great display of her serving capability. She also had a great down-the-T serve that got her out of trouble on multiple occasions. To be honest, despite the score, it was actually a great match. The scoreline didn’t do her opponent, American Kristina Penickova, justice. However, Wakana just consistently found a way to win the games, as she had done in that first mini tournament at IMG.

Photo credit: Florida Tennis

Wakana already has a lot of variety in her forehand, as well as her overall game. She has the ability to either flatten out a forehand at the last moment or pull around the side of the ball and almost whip it off the side of the court. As a right-handed player, it must be exceptionally difficult to get close enough to many of those balls to get a backhand on them. If they do, Wakana often already has them right where she wants them.

Winning a grand slam title is no small feat, but Wakana already shot from there to potentially bigger achievements on the WTA tour. In Abu Dhabi in early February, she beat three top 100 players—Yue Yuan (currently ranked #51 in the world), Haily Baptiste (currently ranked #97), and Cristina Bucsa (currently ranked #99)—before falling to Ons Jabeur 6-3, 6-3.

Photo credit: IMG Academy

Aside from being talented, Wakana is ambitious. Asking her about her goals for 2025, she said her goal this year was to win a WTA tournament. That’s a big target, but she just might do it.

As Margie Zesinger noted toward the end of our interview, “In my 21 years, I would say that Wakana is one of the biggest diamonds that IMG Academy has ever had.”

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Written by Florida Tennis contributor Zachary Shahan. Photo credit (top): IMG Academy