ITF Tennis - Juniors - French Open

ITF Tennis - Juniors - French Open--

Eleanor Preston writing for the ITF junior site is welcome, especially since the official Roland Garros site doesn't have any stories on juniors. (But the match stats even for juniors are awesome. I hope the USTA follows suit for this year's Open.)

But her dismissal of Andrew Kennaugh, the opponent that Sam Querrey double-bagled today, as a mere qualifier overlooks the drama in this match, (albeit before it was played).

At the Orange Bowl last December, Querrey was coming off a big win over France's Jeremy Chardy, who had just won the Grade 1 Eddie Herr. Querrey easily took the first set from Great Britain's Kennaugh in their Round of 16 match, but dropped the second. Querrey then held a match point at 5-3 in the third, but missed a sitter at the net, and Kennaugh, the very definition of a grinder, fought back to force, then win a tiebreaker.

I was anticipating a similarily tight contest today. Obviously it couldn't have been more one-sided. Querrey's now reached the quarterfinals of the last (and first) two junior Grand Slams he's played and there are no seeds left in his half.

So I'll take credit for saying on Sunday that the US junior boys would do better than their older compatriots (there were three in the Round of 16), and that the seeding was bizarre. Only 1, 6 & 5 remain, as I mentioned, all in the top half. And with all their wild cards and highly-touted development program, no French boys (and only one girl) remain. South America has only one representative in the boys' quarters and Spain none.

Having just written that got me thinking that I hadn't seen a world class junior from Spain in my three or four visits to top level international events, so I just went to the ITF junior rankings to see who've they got. And, incredibly, there is not one Spanish boy in the top 200. Does this mean their well is running dry? Somehow I doubt it. Their juniors are probably playing the satellites and futures instead. Last year, Nadal could have played the juniors, but instead was beating Federer at the Nasdaq. Meanwhile, there are two Ukrainians, a Croatian and a Slovakian in the quarters. I wonder if the Spanish and French media are fretting about their tennis futures based on this one tournament. Again, I doubt it. Sometimes a tennis match is just a tennis match, not a referendum on the state of the game in some sort of global competition. That's what Davis Cup is for. And Croatia might just win it this year.