America’s best junior, Iva Jovic, excited about US Open wild cards

It’s been an eventful 12 months for 16-year-old Iva Jovic.

A year ago, this promising Californian spent much of the summer grappling with a stress fracture in her right foot. That injury had kept Jovic out of competition from March to August. At her first tournament back, the 2023 US Open juniors, she’d lost in the first round. But even as Jovic recovered, her focus was unwavering.

“I want to be the best I can be,” she told me last fall. “I want to be in the Top 10. I want to be No. 1 in the world. I want all of those things.” “Nothing stops Iva,” says one of her coaches, Peter Smith.

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Since those spring and summer days when she spent seven weeks in a boot, Jovic has made major strides forward. Earlier this month, at the USTA Billie Jean King Girls’ 18s Nationals in San Diego, she won the singles title and then paired with her longstanding partner, Tyra Grant, to also take the doubles. Grant and Jovic this year have also garnered the doubles titles at Wimbledon and the Australian Open and reached the finals at Roland-Garros. The two titles in San Diego generated wild cards for Jovic into the main draw of both the singles and doubles at the US Open.

“This will be my first WTA main draw event,” she says, “so I’m super-excited.” Jovic has also competed well at several ITF events and as of August 12 was ranked No. 387 in the world.

Jovic lives in Torrance, California, a Los Angeles suburb conveniently located a close drive from two significant tennis hot spots. The first is the Jack Kramer Club, the fabled venue on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, where Hall of Famer Vic Braden was the club’s first head pro, Robert Lansdorp was the second, and other legends such as Tracy Austin, Lindsay Davenport, and Pete Sampras cut their teeth.

This is where Jovic works with Smith, who’s currently the club’s general manager and director of tennis. “Peter does a good job of not making my brain too crowded,” she says. “He gives instructions in a very simple and clear way, and we kind of make technical adjustments through the drills that we do not really through the words that he tells me.” Also nearby is the USTA training facility in Carson.

Added to the mix are frequent trips to the USTA National Campus in Florida, where Jovic practices under the eyes of USTA coach Tom Gutteridge. Though Smith was on-site in San Diego—a mere two hours from where he and Jovic live—Gutteridge is the coach who travels most with Jovic.

“They are a bit different,” says Jovic, “but both kind of have the same goals for me, and they communicate well. So I think it only helps me to have both of them and two perspectives.” Over the course of this year, through work with both Smith and Gutteridge, Jovic has made many tactical and technical improvements, including work on her serve (aided by another guru, Mark Kovacs), groundstrokes, volleys, and an increased ability to mix up speeds and spins. “She’s a very focused young lady,” says Gutteridge. “It’s been a fun year... the progress and the improvement has just been unbelievable.”

But once you’ve been around Jovic, you’ll see that such elements as facilities and coaches all take a back seat to her own relentless ambition. Many of her lessons with Smith take place at 7:30 a.m. Every one of those early mornings Jovic makes sure she and her parents, Bojan and Jelena, are wide awake well prior so that they can arrive early. On match days, Jovic will stretch for 45 minutes before walking on the court.

One of Jovic’s favorite movies is The Pursuit of Happyness, a 2006 film that stars Will Smith as a single father who makes his way from a homeless shelter to success as a stockbroker. “It’s cool to see how hard he worked,” says Jovic, “and that ended up getting some rewards, even though he started with nothing.’”

Jovic’s own pursuit of tennis happiness accelerated in a major way in 2020. Prior to that, she’d mixed in tennis with soccer. But when the pandemic derailed team sports, Jovic immersed herself even more in tennis. In June 2021, she won the Southern California Junior Girls 18s title at the age of 13. Shortly after meeting Jovic, Smith told his wife, “If I cannot make her a pro, I should quit coaching.”

Bojan and Jelena both work as pharmacists at a nearby supermarket pharmacy. As they make time to shuttle Iva to and from practices and tournaments, they are constantly juggling 12-hour work shifts. Jelena is Croatian, Bojan Serbian. The two came to the United States just over 20 years ago. Their first child, Mia, is also an excellent tennis player, about to start her sophomore year at UCLA. As you might expect, Iva greatly admires Novak Djokovic. “Novak is definitely an inspiration for me,” says Jovic. “The way he competes and just how dedicated he is to the sport is really inspiring.”

But much as Jovic appreciates Djokovic, her favorite player is the Swiss, Belinda Bencic. “I like the way she hits the ball early and takes away time from her opponents,” she says. Indeed, this was how Jovic won the 18s final. Her opponent was Valerie Glozman. Glozman, who’s headed to Stanford this fall, had beaten Jovic the last time they played. Glozman hits the ball with two hands off both sides, striking it hard off the right, while also employing a wicked slice from the left and mixing in plenty of smart lobs and drives.

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Despite serving at 4-1 in the first set and holding a set point at 5-4, Jovic eventually went down a set point in the tiebreaker. Winning that point, she went on to take the set and close out the match, 7-6 (6), 6-3. “In the end,” Smith said that day in San Diego, “It’s about having the guts to step up when it matters most.”

Jovic has always loved animals. Her favorite is the zebra. “It’s like a horse, but different,” says Jovic, “I like that it’s different.” Were she not a tennis player, Jovic would want to be a veterinarian. James Herriot, one of the most notable veterinarians in history, once said, “There is something about being a vet which really toughens you up. Or it should.” For now, though, Jovic will continue to bring her ample amounts of grit, resilience, and persistence to the tennis kingdom.