The Youngest Grand Slam Winners in Tennis

Martina Hingis is the youngest Grand Slam singles champion of the Open era, winning the 1997 Australian Open at 16 years and three months old, while Michael Chang is the youngest men’s champion, taking the 1989 French Open at 17. Only Britain’s Lottie Dod, a Wimbledon winner in 1887 at age 15, was younger in any era.

Winning a Grand Slam demands nerve, stamina and experience, which is what makes the handful of teenagers who have managed it so remarkable. These prodigies beat seasoned professionals on the sport’s biggest stages before most of their peers had left school. Here are the full leaderboards of the youngest Grand Slam singles champions, for both women and men, and why such teenage triumphs are fading from the game. All figures are through the 2025 season.

The record: Hingis, Chang and Lottie Dod

The all-time youngest champion is Lottie Dod, who won Wimbledon in 1887 at 15, in an era before professional tennis existed. In the modern Open era, Martina Hingis holds the women’s mark, winning the 1997 Australian Open at 16 years and three months. On the men’s side, Michael Chang’s 1989 French Open title, won at 17 years and three months, has stood for more than three decades.

Chang’s run remains one of the sport’s great fairy tales: he stunned world number one Ivan Lendl in the fourth round, battling cramp so severe that he resorted to an underarm serve, then held his nerve in the final. No younger man has won a major since.

The youngest women’s Grand Slam champions

The table below ranks the youngest women’s Grand Slam singles champions, with the pre-Open-era record noted.

Age	Player	Grand Slam	Year
15	Lottie Dod	Wimbledon	1887 (pre-Open)
16 yrs 3 mo	Martina Hingis	Australian Open	1997
16 yrs 6 mo	Monica Seles	French Open	1990
16 yrs 9 mo	Tracy Austin	US Open	1979
17 yrs 2 mo	Maria Sharapova	Wimbledon	2004
17 yrs 11 mo	Steffi Graf	French Open	1987

Hingis leads the Open-era list, but the cluster from Seles to Austin shows how common teenage women’s champions were in the 1980s and 1990s, before the game grew more physical.

The youngest men’s Grand Slam champions

On the men’s side, the youngest champions are packed into a narrow window of ages 17 and 18.

Age	Player	Grand Slam	Year
17 yrs 3 mo	Michael Chang	French Open	1989
17 yrs 7 mo	Boris Becker	Wimbledon	1985
17 yrs 9 mo	Mats Wilander	French Open	1982
18 yrs	Bjorn Borg	French Open	1974
19 yrs	Rafael Nadal	French Open	2005
19 yrs	Pete Sampras	US Open	1990

Chang, Becker and Wilander all won majors at 17, an age no man has matched since Chang in 1989. Rafael Nadal’s French Open breakthrough at 19 is the youngest of the modern power era. These early titles often launch the careers that end up dominating the most Grand Slams in tennis leaderboard.

Why these records may stand

Teenage Grand Slam champions have all but disappeared. The women’s tour introduced age-eligibility rules in the 1990s to protect young players, limiting how many events they can enter, while the men’s game has skewed older, with champions routinely in their late twenties and thirties. The physical demands of the modern sport reward maturity, which is why Hingis and Chang look increasingly like relics of a different age. Their feats sit alongside the sport’s other landmark achievements, from the most Wimbledon titles to the careers of the greatest tennis players.

The short version: Martina Hingis is the youngest Open-era Grand Slam singles champion, winning the 1997 Australian Open at 16, and Michael Chang the youngest man, at 17 in 1989. Lottie Dod, a Wimbledon winner at 15 in 1887, remains the youngest of any era, all through the 2025 season.