Iva Jovic is the youngest American woman since Venus Williams (1998) to make the last eight at Melbourne Park, in tennis. With an impressive record of 11-3 through her opening three tournaments of the year, Iva Jovic has cemented herself very early on as someone to be on the lookout for.
Most recently, she beat out Yulia Putintseva 6-0, 6-1 just to secure a spot in the quarterfinals of the 2026 Australian Open. “I feel like I played good, solid tennis, just tried to be there every single point,” Jovic said. “Not give her any breathing room, thankfully it was enough today.”She says in regard to she wins against Yulia Putintseva. She lifted her maiden WTA title at the 500-category tournament in Guadalajara last September, she then went onto No. 35 in the world at the end of the 2025 season.
Jovic grew up in Torrance, California and has been playing tennis from the age of five (she now lives in LA) but she didn’t choose to pursue tennis seriously until Covid hit in 2020. Then, she needed to find a non-team sport to keep herself safe, and by 14, in 2021, she had won the Orange Bowl. And by the end of 2025, she had her first title, in Guadalajara, and was into the Top 50.
Due to her big wins, Jovic now has the luxury of choosing when she wants to play and she is already using that by withdrawing from next week’s WTA 1000 tournament in Doha. She says she will be taking this time to focus on herself.
“Now no more tournament restriction. It’s nice to have that feeling of freedom. If I have a bad week or want to play more, I can, and it’s just nice mentally. And obviously, it’s good for the ranking opportunity if you can play more, but I still want to make sure I’m training and getting quality blocks to improve because it’s difficult if you’re just hopping through tournaments every week,” Jovic explained.
Coming a month into 2026, Jovic is enjoying a career-high ranking of No. 20 in the world. Now the United States has six WTA stars ranked inside the top-20 – besides Jovic, there are also Amanda Anisimova, Coco Gauff Jessica Pegula, Madison Keys and Emma Navarro.
“I think focus is one of my strengths. I have a bit of hyper-focus, but honestly, I don’t care too much what people think or say. I’m probably my biggest critic anyway. If I’m happy with myself, I know I’m doing pretty well because I raised the bar pretty high,” says Jovic in regard to herself and her mindset in the sport, hopefully we see this mindset throughout the rest of her career. Able to choose when and where to play. Jovic should hopefully return to action in Dubai, which kicks off on February 15th.
