Who is Tyra Grant? The Katie Boulter conquering 18-year-old born in Italy but made in USA with basketball star father

While Iva Jovic might be making all the running as a rising American at 18, Tyra Grant is very much blazing her own trail as an American Italian in this case representing the latter in tennis after being born in the country.

Grant won the girls doubles title with Jovic back in 2024, but she has never won a main draw match at a Grand Slam before today. She had to qualify through the ardent school of Wimbledon qualifying at Roehampton after perhaps being seen by others before at Rome as a wildcard in previous years.

While she has never won here before as a senior, she does hold those good memories from teaming with Jovic. “I love Aorangi,” Grant told Olympics.com. “Actually, the first day I thought that was the only space where you could have lunch or eat food. Coming here, seeing everything way bigger, it’s great. It makes me feel a lot like I belong here.”

But something she perhaps didn't expect too was being in the same draw with Serena Williams given that when she retired, Grant was only just a teenager and not a senior pro yet. But she also takes parts of Novak Djokovic's game with her too. "With Serena, [I identify with] how aggressive she is, her presence on court, and how she always dictates every point. Novak, I love his mentality. That's what makes the difference; that's what makes him probably the greatest player. Growing up, I looked up to [them] so much, and I'm really glad to see them here this year.”

How exactly did we get here though? Tyra Grant was born on 12 March 2008 in a sporting family with her dad being a basketball player who embarked on a career playing around Europe. Her mother was a tennis teacher so you could say sport runs in the family.

She trained with Jannik Sinner as a child with the duo remaining friends to this day. She is eligible to play for both nations and from 2021 to 2025 she competed for the US. But now she is Italian. She was part of the squad that defended the Billie Jean King Cup title last year and is rising up the ranks in her country albeit in one fiercely contested from Jasmine Paolini to Elisabetta Cocciaretto for instance.

While she has wore both hats as an American Italian, she has playlists for both languages and says she feels very Italian but also American at the same time. She enjoys Italian cooking and being at home with her grandma. “I'm going to say the cooking,” she said. “I love being around the stove with my grandma. I love cooking desserts because my grandma does really good first and second dishes, so making tiramisu with her is one of the nicest things.”

Despite being born in Rome though, she does not support Roma. She supports Juventus and last October, she was invited to a game. She perhaps had form coming into the tournament as she played a WTA 125 reaching the final. She then played three rounds of qualifying and reached the main draw.

Now she plays Marie Bouzkova and she admits that she never really got a semblance of what it is truly like to play on grass given that she barely did as a teenager no mind now going into the senior game.

“We don't really get to play a lot on the surface - even as juniors we have two tournaments, that's it,” she said. “I really like the sound of the ball after my serve or my forehand, and also I like slicing, so it's a lot of things that help me.

“Grass [is] really fast, really slippery, and most of the points being one or two shots - it's the opposite of clay, but somehow I love clay, so it's really good that even different surfaces suit my game.”

In addition though, the pressure cooker of Boulter being on home soil seemed to aid Grant who showed no fear in downing the Brit. She did so quite easily and now moves on. Certainly one to watch in the future.