Wakana Sonobe (園部八奏, Sonobe Wakana, born 17 January 2008) is a Japanese professional tennis player. She won the girls' singles at the 2025 Australian Open and reached the final of the girls' singles at the 2024 US Open.
Early life From Saitama Prefecture, she started playing tennis at four years-old, and briefly did ballet as a youngster. She won the Japanese U14 national tennis title in singles in 2021. She became based at the IMG Academy in the United States in February 2022.
Juniors 2023 She made her junior major debut at the 2023 Australian Open where she reached the second round with partner Emerson Jones. Playing the girls' singles at the 2023 Wimbledon Championships she was defeated by British player Mika Stojsavljevic in the first round. She lost to Stojsavljevic again in the first round of the 2023 US Open girls' singles but reached the semifinals in the doubles alongside compatriot Hayu Kinoshita.
2024 Playing alongside Mika Stojsavljevic, she reached the quarterfinals of the girls' doubles at the 2024 French Open, and they were defeated by eventual winners Iva Jovic and Tyra Caterina Grant. She reached the third round of the singles but lost to Tereza Valentová.
She reached the quarterfinals of the girls' doubles alongside Iva Ivanova of Bulgaria at the 2024 Wimbledon Championships. She reached the third round of the girls' singles where she lost to Iva Jovic.
In September 2024, she defeated Mingge Xu to reach the final of the girls' singles at the 2024 US Open. She lost in the final to British player Mika Stojsavljevic.
Professional 2025: WTA Tour debut and first win She made a second consecutive major final in the girls' singles at the Australian Open, defeating Australian Tahlia Kokkinis and Emerson Jones in the quarterfinal and semifinal, respectively, before beating American Kristina Penickova in straight sets the final. Alongside Mika Stojsavljevic, she also reached the quarterfinals of the at the girls' doubles at the championships.
Sonobe qualified to make her WTA Tour main-draw debut at the WTA 500 Abu Dhabi Open and recorded her first tour-level win over Yuan Yue in the first round. She lost in the second round to Ons Jabeur.
Sonobe announced that she turned professional on 8 October 2025.
ITF Circuit finals Singles: 4 (1 title, 3 runner-ups) LegendW100 tournamentsW15 tournamentsFinals by surfaceHard (1–1)Clay (0–2) ResultW–LDateTournamentTierSurfaceOpponentScoreLoss 0–1 Sep 2022ITF Cancún, MexicoW15 Hard Ava Markham 3–6, 6–3, 1–6Loss 0–2 Sep 2023ITF Hilton Head, United StatesW15 Clay Sophia Biolay 6–4, 2–6, 4–6Loss 0–3 Apr 2024ITF Kuršumlijska Banja, SerbiaW15 Clay Carmen Andreea Herea 6–7(6), 6–4, 4–6Win 1–3 Apr 2025Ando Securities Open, JapanW100 Hard Ena Shibahara 6–4, 6–7(1), 6–3
Doubles: 5 (1 title, 4 runner-ups) LegendW75 tournaments (0–2)W50 tournaments (1–0)W15 tournaments (0–2)Finals by surfaceHard (1–1)Clay (0–3) ResultW–LDateTournamentTierSurfacePartnerOpponentsScoreLoss 0–1 Sep 2023ITF Hilton Head, United StatesW15 Clay Lucciana Pérez Hsu Chieh-yu Mia Yamakita 2–6, 5–7Loss 0–2 Mar 2024ITF Campinas, BrazilW15 Clay Júlia Konishi Camargo Silva Jaeda Daniel Maria Kononova 0–6, 7–6(3), [4–10]Loss 0–3 Jun 2025ITF Caserta, ItalyW75 Clay Ariana Geerlings Cho I-hsuan Cho Yi-tsen 3–6, 6–7(5)Loss 0–4 Jul 2025Championnats de Granby, CanadaW75 Hard Saki Imamura Alexandra Vagramov Darja Viďmanová 6–7(5), 3–6Win 1–4 Oct 2025Rancho Santa Fe Open, USW50 Hard Himeno Sakatsume Fiona Crawley Jaeda Daniel 7–6(5), 3–6, [10–5]
Junior finals Grand Slam tournaments Singles: 2 (1 title, 1 runner-up) ResultYearTournamentSurfaceOpponentScoreLoss 2024 US Open Hard Mika Stojsavljevic 4–6, 4–6Win 2025 Australian Open Hard Kristina Penickova 6–0, 6–1
References
External links