An Indonesian tennis player makes history on the global tennis rankings

Southeast Asian tennis, in general, has been making significant progress over the past two years.

Janice Tjen continues to create a new chapter for Indonesian women's tennis by officially breaking into the WTA top 50, becoming the first female player from her country to reach this milestone in the 21st century. This latest achievement is a well-deserved reward for the remarkable progress the 23-year-old has made recently.

Tjen's historic milestone was set after an impressive performance at this year's Australian Open. In the first round, she secured the biggest victory of her career by defeating world No. 23 Leylah Fernandez —a former Grand Slam finalist—thus becoming the first Indonesian female player to win a main draw match at the Australian Open since Yayuk Basuki in 1998. Although she exited in the second round after losing to former world No. 1 Karolina Pliskova, Tjen left a strong impression.

Thanks to this result, Tjen climbed 12 spots in the WTA rankings, moving from 59th to 47th in the world. She also became only the second Indonesian female player in history to break into the top 50 since the WTA rankings began in 1975. The first to achieve this was Yayuk Basuki, a prominent player throughout the 1990s who reached a career-high ranking of No. 19 in 1997.

Entering the top 50 is just the latest breakthrough in Janice Tjen’s series of achievements. At last year’s US Open, she reached the second round, becoming the first Indonesian female player to win a main draw match at a Grand Slam since Angelique Widjaja at the 2003 French Open. In October, Tjen entered the top 100 for the first time, ending Indonesia’s more than 20-year absence from the world’s elite players.

Not stopping there, last November, the second-ranked Southeast Asian player claimed her first WTA title at Chennai (India), rising to No. 53 and finishing the season inside the top 60 worldwide.

This week, Janice Tjen continues her quest for new milestones by competing at the WTA 500 Abu Dhabi tournament, carrying the high hopes of Indonesian tennis on the international stage.