Hance and Frodin Reach Australian Open Junior Semifinals, Traralgon Champions Upset in Quarterfinals; Peers Defends AO Mixed Title; Bender and Gardality Advance to Les Petits As Doubles Final; Brady Reaches San Diego W100 Semifinals
Thea Frodin and Keaton Hance both advanced to Saturday's semifinals at the Australian Open Junior Championships, but there was little similarity in the manner they accomplished that acheivement.
Frodin, the No. 8 seed, needed just over an hour to defeat No. 13 seed Mariia Makarova 6-3, 6-0, winning the final nine games of the match.
The 17-year-old from California had 16 winners and 13 unforced errors and never faced a break point despite getting only 45 percent of her first serves in.
Makarova was unable to get back on track after a close first half of the opening set. The 16-year-old from Russia made 23 unforced errors and hit just eight winners, and had only a few game points in those last nine games, when the match was all but decided.
Frodin will face unseeded Ekaterina Tupitsyna of Russia, who battled back to beat Traralgon champion Xinran Sun of China 3-6, 7-5, 7-5. Sun was up 4-2 in the second set and served for the match at 5-4 in the third, but Tupitsyna continued to take aggressive cuts and aim for the lines to earn the biggest win of her junior career.
Frodin needed less time to win her match than it took her boyfriend Hance to claim his first set in his 7-6(7), 6-4 win over No. 11 seed Kuan-Shou Chen of Taiwan.
Much of that was due to Hance's 51 unforced errors, that saw him go from 2-0 up in the first set to Chen serving for it at 5-4. But despite all the forehand errors, some of which could no doubt be attributed to the speed and consistency Chen, Hance kept competing, and after saving a set point in that game with a deep ball that handcuffed Chen, broke back. He then lost serve again, but again broke back to send the set into a tiebreaker.
Up 6-5 in the tiebreaker, Hance then lost both of his serves with unforced errors, but he saved a second set point with a perfectly executed volley; on his second set point, he finally ended 75-minute set with a forehand winner.
The second set looked to be firmly in Hance's control when he broke his fellow 17-year-old for a 4-1 lead, but Hance then proceeded to lose his next two service games without earning a game point in either.
But in Chen's service game, Hance got an opportunity at 30-40 and outlasted Chen in a long rally, with Chen eventually hitting a forehand wide to put Hance up 5-4. Somewhat surprisingly, given the history of the match, Hance closed it out easily, with four first serves, two of his 29 winners and two return errors by Chen.
Hance will face No. 8 seed Zangar Nurlanuly of Kazakhstan, who needed nearly three hours to shake unseeded Kai Thompson of Hong Kong 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-4. Nurlanuly is in his second consecutive junior slam semifinal, after becoming the first player from his country to advance that far at the US Open.
In the bottom half, No. 3 seed Ryo Tabata of Japan made his second career junior slam final four, with the Roland Garros semifinalist beat No. 5 seed Jamie Mackenzie of Germany 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-6(7) in two hours and 45-minutes, saving four match points serving at 5-6 in the third set.
Tabata will face Ziga Sesko of Slovenia, who avenged his two 2025 losses to Traralgon champion Luis Guto Miguel 6-2, 7-6(5). Sesko has not lost a set this week after losing in the third round last week in Traralgon.
Hance and Nurlanuly met for the only time way back in 2022 in the ITF World Junior Tennis team event for 14U players, and that is also the same tournament where Sesko got his win over Tabata in their only other meeting.
Three unseeded teams and one No. 1 team will compete in the doubles finals Saturday.
The Australian wild card team of Ymerali Ibraimi and Cooper Kose will face Conner Doig of South Africa and Dimitar Kisimov of Bulgaria for the boys title.
Top seeds Alena Kovackova and Jana Kovackova of the Czech Republic will play for their second straight junior slam doubles title, with the US Open champions facing compatriots Tereza Hermanova and Denisa Zoldakova in the girls doubles final.
In the Australian Open mixed doubles final Friday, wild cards John Peers and Olivia Gadecki of Australia defended their title, beating unseeded Kristina Mladenovic and Manuel Guinard of France 4-6, 6-3, 10-8 in the final. Peers, a former standout at Middle Tennessee State and Baylor, and Gadecki are the first team to defend a mixed title at the Australian Open since Jana Novotna and Jim Pugh(UCLA) accomplished that in 1988 and 1989. For more on the mixed doubles final, see this article from the ATP website.
The Les Petits As singles semifinals and doubles finals are set, and despite all the chaos the first four days of the tournament, there is still a good chance a seed will win all four events.
Two Swiss boys have advanced to the singles semifinals, with qualifier Richard Mitchell facing No. 9 seed Luis Bernardo Saraiva of Portugal in the top half.
No. 10 seed Jonas Waelti of Switzerland will face last week's champion at Bolton, Lyoma Hotelier of Japan, the No. 16 seed.
Top seed Elizaveta Anikina may have faced her toughest test in the third round against Bolton champion and No. 16 seed Anna Kapanadze of the United States, but Anikina was back to her previous form today, surrending just two games. She will play No. 5 seed Polina Kashitsyna of Russia, who has yet to drop a set in her four wins.
Unseeded Vasilisa Marchenko of Russia will face a third Russian finalist, No. 10 seed Aleksandra Karabanova, after Karabanova defeated unseeded Nadia Poznick, the last American in singles, 6-0, 6-1.
No. 4 seeds Karabanova and Kashitsyna will play for the doubles title against unseeded compatriots Varvara Makarova and Ildana Zaripova. Makarova and Zaripova defeated Poznick and Czech partner Beata Maresova 6-2, 7-5 in the semifinals today.
The unseeded American doubles team of Daniel Gardality and David Bender will play for the boys doubles title after beating Hotelier and Reita Yamanaka of Japan 6-2, 6-4 in today's semifinals. They will face No. 5 seeds Martin Adamca and Matteo Sanson of Slovakia in the championship match.
Live streaming and live scoring is available here.
At the W100 in San Diego, former UCLA All-American Jennifer Brady's comeback is proceeding smoothly, with the 30-year-old advancing to the semifinals.
Brady, who accepted a wild card into her first event since October of 2023, beat No. 3 seed Cadence Brace of Canada, a sophomore at LSU, 7-5, 6-4 in today's quarterfinals. She will play No. 5 seed Elvina Kalieva, who beat top seed Louisa Chirico 7-6(7), 6-3.
No. 6 seed Mary Stoiana(Texas A&M) is through to the semifinals after LSU sophomore Kayla Cross of Canada, the No. 4 seed, retired trailing 5-2 in the first set. Stoiana will face No. 2 seed Elli Mandlik, who needed two hours and 20 minutes to get past 15-year-old qualifier Kristina Liutova 6-2, 4-6, 7-5.
