Wimbledon 2014: Noah Rubin offers US hope by winning boys’ title

Qualifier beats compatriot Stefan Kozlov 6-4, 4-6, 6-3
Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko wins girls’ title
Noah Rubin Wimbledon
Noah Rubin, a member of the John McEnroe academy in New York, celebrates winning the boys' title at Wimbledon. Photograph: Henry Browne/Action Images

The United States have had their worst Wimbledon since 1911, with no men or women getting past round three, but perhaps there is hope for the future after Noah Rubin won the boys’ title with a battling 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 victory over another American, Stefan Kozlov. Rubin, a member of the John McEnroe academy in New York, is the first American winner since Donald Young in 2007 and only the second in 33 years.

It was a first grand slam title for the 18-year-old qualifier who was given a US flag by Kozlov at the trophy presentation. “At the end when we were holding the American flag, I was [thinking]: ‘This is pretty special,’” Rubin said. “Hopefully we’ll keep rising together and none of us will fall off, and as a group we’ll get to the top and show the results America wants.”

The girls’ title was won by Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko, who beat Anna Karolina Schmiedlova of Slovakia 2-6, 6-3, 6-0. “In the first set I was a bit nervous,” she said after clinching her first grand slam title. “This means the world to me.”