The future global prodigy!
- TIM ESSONNE
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
A journey to follow closely...
Rafael Pagonis is one of the earliest revelations of European tennis and already embodies the hope of a new Greek wave, after Stefanos Tsitsipas (former world number 3) and Maria Sakkari (former world number 3).
As the number 1 seed, he participated in the Tim Essonne 2025 and won it handily, winning all his matches in two sets. He notably triumphed in the final against the rising star of European tennis, Austrian Moritz Freitag , the number 2 seed (6-2, 7-6(1)).
In 2025, he became the first Greek to win the prestigious Tennis Europe Junior Masters U14 in Monte Carlo. Just a few weeks earlier, he had already made history by winning the European U14 Championship, a first for a Greek player. His well-rounded, powerful, and tactically mature game allows him to excel on both clay and hard courts.
He concluded his exceptional season with a record of 51 wins and only 5 losses, and several titles won on all surfaces. This perfectly confirms his dominance at the European level at just 14 years old.
At the end of 2025, he even reached a media milestone with a training and advice session in Athens alongside the current world number 4 and tennis legend, Novak Djokovic .
He will logically be named 2025 U14 Player of the Year (Junior Tour) by Tennis Europe, the leading European association. Rafael Pagonis is thus further cementing his image as a prodigy, undoubtedly destined to play a major role in the next decade of world tennis.
