US Open kicks off next week and regardless of results, Greeks can already feel proud for a significant milestone.

This year’s tournament will be the first time in history that three Greek players join a Grand Slam main draw.

It doesn’t come as a surprise to see Stefanos Tsitsipas and Maria Sakkari competing, but the tournament also features a Greek Grand Slam debutante.

Valentini Grammatikopoulou stood out in the qualifiers, winning each of her matches in three sets over Lucia Bronzetti, Anna Kalinskaya and Liang En-Shuo.


Born in the small Macedonian town of Axioupoli, the daughter of a street market worker, she won her first two ITF titles as a 16-year-old in 2013.

She reached her career high of No.158 in November 2018 but has since suffered from incosistency falling to No.287 this May.

The 24-year-old has made it thus far against all odds amidst financial difficulty.

“When I was [ranked] 400, four years ago, I was winning €1,000 and then travelling with this money to go to another tournament, even not thinking of going back home. That was the circle, that’s how you build and get out of these small tournaments,” Valentini Grammatikopoulou told the Guardian in a 2020 interview.

Grammatikopoulou will have a first-round clash with Anna Blinkova on Tuesday, a few hours after Tsitsipas’ US Open blockbuster facing former champion Andy Murray.

Sakkari will tackle MartaKostyuk on Wednesday.

READ MORE: Tsitsipas’ journey from the courts of Glyfada to the Grand Slam stage