Pride, hard work and following a role model: Janice Tjen shares tennis journey after incredible win over Veronika Kudermetova at US Open

Indonesia’s Janice Tjen arguably produced the biggest upset on day one of the US Open 2025 as she defeated 25th-seed Veronika Kudermetova with a score of 6-4, 4-6, 6-4. The victory was incredible considering that less than 18 months ago, Tjen was an unseeded player.

Since then, however, the 23-year-old has hardly put a foot wrong on the tennis court. Tjen went on to win 100 of the last 113 matches, which pushed her under the top 150 players in the WTA rankings, which was enough to land her a spot in the qualifying round of the US Open.

That was the window of opportunity Tjen was looking for. Tjen secured three comprehensive wins in straight sets and secured a spot in the main draw of the fourth and the final Grand Slam of the year. Sunday’s win over Kudermetova was yet another achievement for Tjen on the tennis court in a short span of time.

Tjen became the first Indonesian women’s player to win a Grand Slam fixture in more than two years. She also became the first Indonesian women’s player to beat a top 30-ranked player at a Grand Slam and in a WTA event in more than 20 years. Those achievements did not go unnoticed, and she acknowledged it while talking to the media after the match.

Tjen stated that she was ‘proud’ to produce such performances for her country and remains optimistic that his impressive performances on the court will help motivate other girls in the country to follow a similar route. "I feel proud to be able to do this for my country," said Tjen. "Hopefully like this, by me making appearance here, will inspire more tennis player -- like, younger kids to play tennis and also believing that they can be here too."

Talking about her journey of becoming a tennis player, Tjen revealed that the former Australian Open doubles champion Priska Nugroho, who is her friend, played a key role in doing that as she was the one who forced her to start playing tennis professionally. "My parents were just like, 'Yeah, just go play the sport, just having exercise,' so I'm not going to be in my room just doing nothing," recalled Tjen.

Tjen’s next opponent will be the former US Open winner Emma Raducanu. The 22-year-old secured a comfortable win in the first round contest against Japan’s Ena Shibahara in straight sets with a score of 6-1, 6-2. Against a top opponent like Kudermetova, Tjen was extremely efficient with her forehand, which helped her win as many as 20 points on the day.

Talking about it, Tjen stated that she managed to achieve that because of putting a lot of efforts behind the closed doors. "Me and my coach have been working on that," said Tjen. "Just making sure that if it is a 50/50, we're going in, coming into the net. And I would say we have a pretty good percentage of winning up at the net, so we would want to make more appearance up there.”

Tjen’s game looks similar to that of the former world number one, Australia’s Ashleigh Barty. The 29-year-old, who retired from the sport in 2022, finished her career with three Grand Slam titles. Talking about the similarities, Tjen admitted that she has tried to copy what Barty did during her playing days as she was her ‘role model’. "I have been hearing that a lot [about similarity between her and Barty’s game play]," said Tjen. "She's, I would say, my role model. I would watch a little bit of her matches and try to copy what works for me, what's not, and just trying to understand her game a little bit more."