Moyuka Uchijima

Born in Kuala Lumpur to a Japanese father and a Malaysian mother, Uchijima competes for Japan and came up the slow way, debuting on tour as a doubles wildcard at her home WTA event in 2018 and waiting until a 2023 Australian Open wildcard for a first Grand Slam main draw, which ended against Bernarda Pera. The ITF circuit built the ranking — 13 singles titles there, plus two WTA 125 crowns. In May 2024 she ran off 19 straight wins, the Madrid W100 among them, to break into the top 100.

The 5-foot-9 right-hander lives off the two-handed backhand and return depth rather than free points, as evidenced by a 3.3 percent career ace rate and 53.8 percent of service games held. That math forces her to make her money on the return, where she has won 40.8 percent of points for her career and 44 percent across eight stat-carrying matches in 2026.

Madrid in 2025 remains the high-water mark. Arriving at WTA No. 56, she posted the first three top-25 wins of her career — Ons Jabeur, then Jessica Pegula, ranked WTA No. 3, then Ekaterina Alexandrova — for a first WTA 1000 quarterfinal, which Elina Svitolina ended 6-2, 6-1. A career high of WTA No. 47 followed on May 5, 2025. The Slam ledger is thinner: four second rounds, the best of them a 7-6(2), 4-6, 7-6(9) escape at the US Open.

As of August 2026 the 24-year-old sits at WTA No. 100, eleven spots below a year earlier and 23 off her season peak of No. 77, with a 2-6 record whose bright spot was a 6-3, 6-4 win over Cristina Bucsa at the Canadian Open before Aryna Sabalenka took the next one 6-3, 6-3. Still no tour-level title on the board.