by Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
Jordan Lee, the 16-year-old who graced the courts of the Sea Oaks Beach & Tennis Club during the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships USTA Pro Circuit event in May, served notice that he may be a force in American tennis on the pro tour in the years to come by winning the Wimbledon junior boys singles title.
Lee came back from a 4-2 deficit in the final set to defeat Cruz Hewitt, the 17-year-old son of 2002 Wimbledon champion Lleyton Hewitt 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 in the championship match played on Court 1 at the All England Club. Lee broke Hewitt at love to close out the match after saving a break point the previous game that would have given Hewitt the chance to serve for the title himself.
Lee celebrated his 16th birthday on the opening day of the Mardy Fish event at Sea Oaks and, as a wild card entry, defeated Jon Gamble in the first round to earn his second career ATP ranking point. In the second round, Lee faced former Top 40 star J.J. Wolf and played tough despite losing 6-4, 6-2.
“He’s got so much firepower for someone so young” said Wolf of Lee after their match in Vero Beach.
Lee’s ITF junior ranking at Wimbledon was No. 47 and he has an ATP singles ranking of No. 1768 on the basis of two ranking points in the four pro events he has played. Lee did not directly qualify for the Wimbledon junior boys singles field and had to win two matches in the event’s qualifying tournament just to get into the 64-player field. He joins fellow American Noah Rubin, the Wimbledon junior champion in 2014, as the only players to win the Wimbledon junior boys singles title as a qualifier. He is first American player to win the boys’ singles title at Wimbledon since 2021, when Samir Banerjee defeated Victor Lilov in an all-American final. He also becomes the 13th American player to win the boys’ singles title at the All England Club, and the fifth American player to do so since 2000 – after Donald Young (2007), Rubin (2014), Reilly Opelka (2015) and Banerjee.
Lee has been described as “A Legend at the USTA National Campus” as the 100-court facility in Lake Nona, just outside of Orlando, has been in his home courts, mainly because his mother, Tina Lee, is the center’s head tennis professional. He has excelled in junior events on the campus – and elsewhere – and even earned his first ATP ranking point at $15,000 pro event held on the campus in November of 2025.
“He’s been on the radar with some of the USTA coaches but even more so now on the scene and even more people will take notice,” said former top 10 star James Blake on ESPN.
Lee’s win will certainly open up many opportunities in events and also with corporate brands. His win will give him strong consideration on its own for a wild card entry into the U.S. Open qualifying tournament later this summer, but if Lee is able to win the USTA National Boy’s 18s Championships in Kalamazoo, Michigan in August, he would earn the traditional main draw U.S. Open singles wild card invitation.
