What's next for Henry Searle after Wimbledon 2023 boys’ tennis glory for Britain?

Rising tennis star Henry Searle ended a 61-year long drought for Great Britain, when he triumphed in the boys’ singles at Wimbledon 2023.

The A-level student is looking forward to playing some golf following the trophy success, and still "has to go back and tidy his room", his brother told the BBC, but what else is in store for the British hope?

The 17-year-old moves up to number 6 in the junior world rankings after beating Yaroslav Demin 6-4, 6-4 in the final, to claim the junior grand slam without dropping a single set in the tournament.

Stanley Matthews, the son of England footbal legend Sir Stanley Matthews, was the last British tennis player to win the Wimbledon boy’s tournament, back in 1962.

Searle's coach believes the tournament win will be a stepping stone for the teenager from Wolverhampton to enter men's professional tennis.

"If you get top-10 [in juniors] then you get fast-tracked into some [ATP] Challenger events - that's a big incentive for us. Junior tennis is a massive platform going into the men's game," said Morgan Phillips, Searle’s coach, according to BBC Sport.

Studying A-Levels

Henry Searle is balancing his time on the tennis courts with studying for his A-level exams. Despite tennis taking a lot of his time, he studies psychology and history at Loughborough Amherst School.

"The plan is to still do my A-Levels. How easy that will be I don't know, with all the travelling. But I'll see what happens," Searle told the BBC after his win.

"I think there's the jump to the men's game that needs to be done a little bit quicker - hopefully that can happen now".

Where Searle will play next, he still does not know, but he will spend a few days celebrating and playing golf before starting his preparations for the next tournament.

Searle having success on clay and grass... but those aren't his favourite surfaces

Searle grew up in Wolverhampton, where he began swinging a racket at the local Newbridge Tennis Club.

“I started playing tennis at the age of three. I was taken away with any sport at that age and just enjoyed playing anything. I always loved picking up a racket but it was a few years later that I really started to love it so I stopped playing football at the age of 11 and pursued tennis full time,” he told LTA.

Aged 12, Searle went to the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in France. Here he worked on his skills with some of the best players in the world. When he returned, Searle was inducted into the British Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) National Tennis Academy at Loughborough University, where he got support from expert coaches to take his game to the next level.

So far, the 17-year-old has claimed the 16U LTA Junior National Championships last year, and he played a key role in the Great Britian team that qualified for the Junior Davis Cup finals.

This year, he reached the quarter-finals at the Roland Garros French Open junior tournament on clay courts, before clinching the biggest triumph of his career at Wimbledon on grass. Searle's favoured surface is hard courts, which suggests he'll be one to watch at the US Open Junior Championships 2023 in September.

An avid Wolves football fan

When Searle is not spending time on the tennis court practising, he enjoys watching his favourite football team, Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The teenager tries to go cheer for the team, known as Wolves, at as many games as possible during the season, at their Molineux Stadium.

Manager of Wolves, Julen Lopetegui, even sent a special message to Searle on Twitter before the Wimbledon boy’s singles final.

“The strength of the Wolves will be with you,” the Spaniard said in the video.

“It was pretty cool to see, how much support I’ve got back home, and obviously receiving a message from such a big manager like him was special,” Searle told Sky Sports after his victory.