Hilton Head 13-year-old wins Wimbledon girls title. Her coach wasn’t surprised
Hilton Head has a Wimbledon champion.
Her name is Isha Manchala.
She’s just 13.
Sunday morning, South Carolina time, Manchala, who trains out of Hilton Head, edged Maria Kocherhenko of Ukraine 10-8 in a match tiebreaker after splitting the first two sets 7-5, 2-6 to win the girls’ 14-and-under Wimbledon singles championship.
Manchala became the first American to win the prestigious 14 and under title.
Afterward, Manchala posed for a photo standing on the well-worn green grass of world’s most famous tennis tournament. She smiled as she held the silver title trophy with her name on it.
“She’s very excited,” said her coach, Derek Porter, director of Hilton Head’s Van der Meer Tennis Academy, back in Hilton Head. “She definitely dealt with some nerves in the final, but she handled it as good as she could.”
Manchala began training under Porter at the Van der Meer Tennis Academy four years ago.
Her parents are Kavitha and Ravi Manchala. The family lives on Hilton Head.
Heading into the Wimbledon final, Porter knew Manchala had a good shot because she has been playing well and against older players.
“There are no guarantees in sports, but definitely I knew she was capable of winning it for sure,” said Porter, who watched the match on ESPN. “The talent is there, no question.”
Manchala holds the No. 1 Universal Tennis Rating in the world for girls under 14.
“She just tends to learn things very quickly and she’s able to apply what we work on practice into her competitive matches very quickly,” Porter said.
Manchala had never played on grass until five days before Wimbledon. But the surface fits her aggressive playing style, said Porter, noting she is not afraid to rush the net.
Watching Manchala — who Porter says is a “little on the small side” physically — grow into her game, step by step, has been a neat experience, Porter says. With the Wimbledon trophy in the bag and the No. 1 UTR rating, she’s now carrying the torch for Van der Meer tennis, he said.
“And she’s only 13 years old so she’s got a lot of things to look forward to,” he said.
This story was originally published July 12, 2026 at 3:57 PM.
