Pro Tennis Fan: Top Junior Hopes for Spanish Citizenship

Pro Tennis Fan: Top Junior Hopes for Spanish Citizenship ~~~

When Lisen at Pro Tennis Fan announced earlier this month that she's scaling back on her blogging, I was dismayed, to understate it. She does such a fantastic job of finding all the tennis stories of interest that I'd probably never run across on my own--like this one--that I already miss her, and she hasn't gone anywhere yet.

This story is about the quest of Gueorgui Roumenov, the recent winner of the Orange Bowl boys 16s singles title, for Spanish citizenship. Although the ITF junior website does have an entry for him, it shows his country as Bulgaria, and his surname as Roumenov-Payakov, which isn't the surname his father says is correct.

As confusing as this is, it's quite clear that Roumenov is a very fine junior tennis player (although where and how he became "junior world champion" as the story claims, isn't detailed). He reached the quarterfinals of the 18s at the Eddie Herr prior to winning the Orange Bowl 16s. Spain had only two boys total in both 16s and 18s Orange Bowl draws, so I'd expect the Federation would be happy to oblige his request for citizenship.