Unseeded Snigur caps junior career with Wimbledon win

LONDON, Great Britain - Seventeen-year-old Daria Snigur said goodbye to the junior ranks in style at Wimbledon.

The unseeded Snigur beat three seeds to win her first girls' singles Grand Slam, and capped off the run with a 6-4, 6-4 over No.10 seed Alexa Noel of the United States on Saturday.

"I can't believe it. It was my dream. It's very good for me. I worked hard every day for this trophy. It's incredible," Snigur said.

"I finish my junior career here [with] very good feelings. It's very good for me, for my career I think, because I won 15, 25K [ITF Pro Circuit] woman's tournaments. I want to win a Grand Slam, of course. It was my dream."

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The Ukrainian is the first junior girls' player from her country to win the singles title at Wimbledon in 15 years, following Kateryna Bondarenko in 2004.

She is the fourth Ukrainian to win a junior Grand Slam singles title overall, joining Bondarenko, Elina Svitolina (2010 French Open) and Marta Kostyuk (2017 Australian Open).

Snigur also beat No.11 seed Kamilla Bartone of Latvia in the first round, and top seeded American Emma Navarro in the semifinals with the loss of just three games.

Snigur rallied from big deficits in both sets, as she trailed the American, who used variation from the baseline to great effect early on.

From 4-1 down in the first set and 3-0 down in the second set, the Ukrainian's flat hitting started to find its mark in each set's late stages, as she won five straight games to win the first set and six of the last seven to win the match.

Saturday's final was Snigur's second win against Noel in the span of three weeks, as the pair also met in the final of the prestigious Grade 1 ITF junior event at Roehampton in the week prior to Wimbledon.

Snigur won that match, too, with the loss of just three games.

"I know her game because we played in Roehampton final. It's very hard game for me because I don't like when she play all time slices, but I must play because it's the finals of Wimbledon. I don't have any choice in that," Snigur said.

"When I saw the stadium, I'm really happy, I'm really scared, but I must play. I'm really nervous. I'm now nervous. I'm nervous before match, during the match, after the match. I'm nervous the whole time.

"I am tired now, but I can relax."