The WTA Tour has an array of rising young stars who look set to take the tennis world by storm over the next few years, and now another player has forced her way into that conversation.<\/p>\n
Few would have been aware of Tiantsoa Sarah Rakotomanga Rajaonah heading into the SP Open Sao Paulo this week, though the 19-year-old now finds herself a WTA champion after her triumph at the WTA 250 event.<\/p>\n
Having surged up to a new career-high ranking of world No 131 in this week\u2019s WTA Rankings<\/a>, the French star \u2014 who prefers to go by Sarah Rakotomanga \u2014 looks set for further big breakthroughs over the coming weeks and months; here is all you need to know about the rising star.<\/p>\n Rakotomanga Rajaonah was born in Antsirabe, Madagascar in December 2005 to parents of Malagasy heritage, and moved to France as a young girl, living in Montpellier.<\/p>\n She began playing tennis at the age of six, inspired by both Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal, and trains across both Toulouse and Plaisir in France.<\/p>\n The Frenchwoman has so far spent the bulk of her career competing on the ITF Tour, with four career titles at ITF level to date.<\/p>\n Rakotomanga Rajaonah defeated Alba Rey Garc\u00eda to win her first ITF title in Valencia in December 2022, and has won further titles in Melilla, Gonesse, and Arequipa since then.<\/span><\/p>\n Before her run in Sao Paulo, she reached what was the biggest final of her career to date at the W100 Open de Biarritz in June 2025, falling to Mayar Sherif in the final.<\/p>\n The \u2018real\u2019 tennis rankings revealed \u2013 Sabalenka, Swiatek, Osaka and Raducanu in the mix<\/a><\/p>\n Teenager Iva Jovic\u2019s points and prize money after winning maiden WTA trophy at Guadalajara<\/a><\/p>\n Aged only 19, the French star has only limited WTA Tour experience, with her Sao Paulo Open triumph coming in just her third main-draw appearance at tour level.<\/p>\n Rakotomanga Rajaonah made her WTA Tour-level debut at the Rouen Open earlier this year, taking a wildcard into qualifying before beating both Emily Appleton and qualifying top seed Jessika Ponchet to reach the main draw.<\/p>\n In her first-ever tour-level main draw match, the teen star stunned seventh seed Lucia Bronzetti with an impressive 6-2, 6-3 victory, before beating Jaqueline Cristian by the same scoreline to reach the last eight of the WTA 250 event.<\/p>\n Her campaign was ended in the last eight by Suzan Lamens, though it was a huge step forward for Rakotomanga Rajaonah \u2014 and she then made her Grand Slam main draw debut later that spring.<\/p>\n She received a wildcard into her home Grand Slam at the French Open, where she fell in the opening round to Spanish qualifier Leyre Romero Gormaz in straight sets.<\/p>\n Rakotomanga Rajaonah also received a wildcard into the women\u2019s doubles event at Roland Garros, with she and \u00c9meline Dartron falling in their opening match.<\/p>\n After an opening-round defeat in US Open qualifier, the 19-year-old entered the SP Open and qualified for the main draw, battling from the brink of defeat to beat Ana Sof\u00eda S\u00e1nchez in round one.<\/p>\n She would later beat both eighth seed Panna Udvardy and fifth seed Renata Zarazua to reach the final, before beating Tjen in the championship match.<\/p>\n Read Next<\/strong>: What prize money & points did Tiantsoa Sarah Rakotomanga Rajaonah earn at SP Open?<\/a><\/p>\n The post Who is Tiantsoa Sarah Rakotomanga Rajaonah? Rising French WTA Tour star<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The WTA Tour has an array of rising young stars who look set to take the tennis world by storm over the next few years, and now another player has forced her way into that conversation. Few would have been aware of Tiantsoa Sarah Rakotomanga Rajaonah heading into the SP Open Sao Paulo this week, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Early life and background<\/h2>\n
Career to date<\/h2>\n
Tennis News<\/h2>\n
WTA Tour experience<\/h2>\n