Australian Open Juniors Preview
Helen McFetridge of the ITF recently filed this preview of the Australian Open Junior Championships, which I am, sadly, not going to be covering live. (I also have heard recently that juniortennis.com has changed its plans and will not be there either--coverage will be confined to the ITF and whatever the Australian Open website gets around to posting).
There isn't much to disagree with in her handicapping, although I would probably favor Cornet or Paszek, not Pavlyuchenkova, given that they made it through qualifying in the main draw in Australia, while she fell a match short. I also would mention Evgeniya Rodina of Russia, who is ranked 222 by the WTA computers, a number that might earn her a seed, despite an ITF ranking of 60.
The girls event is unquestionably deeper than the boys, primarily because many girls eligible for main draw qualifying made it worth the trip by entering the juniors too. (None of the boys in the juniors would have had a prayer of getting in qualifying without a wild card). In that category is Madison Brengle, who won the USTA's main draw wild card tournament as a last-minute replacement in December, and had the misfortune of drawing No. 8 seed Patty Schnyder in the first round in Australia. The other U.S. girls in the junior draw are Julia Cohen, Reka Zsilinszka, Kim Couts, Chelsey Gullickson and Missy Clayton. Unlike last year, when five U.S. girls qualified, there will not be appreciably more when qualifying is complete; only Julia Boserup (who had a huge win over world No. 3 Ksenia Milevskaya of Belarus in the quarterfinals of this week's Nottinghill Grade 1) and Brittany Augustine are in the qualifying draw, although both won on Friday.
Only four U.S. boys made the long journey Down Under: Dennis Lajola, Johnny Hamui, Mateusz Kecki and Austin Krajicek. The ITF's top-ranked U.S. boys, Kellen Damico (5), Donald Young (9) and Rhyne Williams (42) passed on the opportunity. Young and Williams are playing the Futures events in Florida this month. The only American in qualifying is Drew Daniel, who was the last player not to get in on his ranking (at the time of acceptance 129, now 66), meaning he will be the first "lucky loser" in, now that he has won his first round in qualifying (I'm pretty sure that's how it works in Grand Slams).
For the qualifying draws, check here. If you are interested in the acceptance list, there is a tab at the top of the page for that (scroll down a bit once you land on that page).
14 comments:
keep
clays
in
rockville
kthanks
Absolutely pathetic that we have only 4 junior boys at the open.
taking the clays out of Rockville is like taking national hardcourts out of Kalamazoo---it just isn't right.
DON'T DO IT.
that is sooo true-- clays need to stay in rockville.
could someone please explain to me what was so great about taking 30 minutes to get to a site 5 miles away. that was rockville. good riddance with that traffic.
who cares about traffic?
clays need to stay in rockville.
move the clays--too much traffic, sites too far apart, too hot, too expensive. why stay?
No, clays leaving rockville would not be like hard courts leaving the zoo. 18s were only there for 3yrs anyways.
noooooo
clays NEED to stay in Rockville.
and i agree it WOULD be kinda like taking hard courts out of kalamazoo
whyyy would you want to move the clays out of Rockville?
its such a good place to have it & i think i speak for everyone when I say the wildcards into legg mason were GREAT.
could you people please quit comparing the clays to the ZOO as if they should be mentioned in the same breath.
get a life, Zoo!!!
Zoo, Clay Courts, Eddie Herr, Orange Bowl-- ALL GREAT IN DIFFERENT WAYS!!!
zoo is not the only terrific tournament in the world, it is very good, for sure-other top tournaments offer unique experiences, also.
take away the wildcards from the Zoo and ClayCourts and see what happens
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