Four U.S. Girls Make Australian Open Juniors Third Round
Reka Zsilinszka, Madison Brengle, Chelsey Gullickson and qualifier Julia Boserup all advanced to the round of 16 with wins on Tuesday at the Australian Open Junior Championships in Melbourne.
Only Brengle, the 16th seed, did so in straight sets; the other three went the distance, although neither Gullickson nor Boserup lost a game in their final sets. Boserup scored the first big upset of the tournament on Monday when she took out No. 7 seed Sharon Fichman of Canada. The other U.S. girls who made the trip--Kim Couts, Julia Cohen and Missy Clayton--all won their first round matches, but lost in second round action Tuesday.
The girls' side saw two notable upsets on Tuesday. No. 2 seed Yung-Jan Chan, who was such a lofty seed based her WTA ranking of 75, lost to Ling Zhang of Hong Kong and No. 4 seed Ayumi Morita went out to Australian wild card Alison Bai.
The U.S. boys, only five of whom were in the draw, have all been eliminated with Mateusz Kecki's loss on Tuesday. He was the only American boy to win in the first round.
The talk of Australia has been Bernard Tomic, who upset No. 6 seed Jose Roberto Velasco of Bolivia on Monday. If you don't think Australia is starved for tennis heroes, read Eleanor Preston's account for the ITF junior site. On Tuesday, Tomic lost to Kevin Botti of France in three sets and Isabella Holland was put out by Boserup. I'll be interested to read the reaction to those results in the Australian press.
For complete draws in Australia, including doubles, see the Australian Open website.
37 comments:
Anyone know how the U.S. kids are doing in England At Teen Tennis.
Gee it must be frustrating to be Greg Jones in Australia- 5 in the (juniors) world after seriously consistent performances in 2006, a great first 2 weeks in the lead up tournaments and no one in Australia would even know who he is. On second thoughts- let Tomic have the pressure- Jonesy will keep on doing what he's doing and hopefully sometime this weekend, an Australian journalist might make his acquiantance. If they do, it will be a tribute for an honest hard working performer- and very well deserved.
Dear Collette, I understandthat the Teen Tennis Tournament has started in England. Can you please tell us where we can find the draw?
Whats your take on Julia Cohen? She's right up there in the rankings at #7 and it seems that most all of the kids who get that high turn pro but when you look at her record she never seems to do much in the big events (qtrs at the Orange Bowl, but only 3rd round US Open and Eddie Hurr, 2nd round Aus Open, Wimbledon and the French).
Is she turning pro, has she already turned pro or is she still considering college?
Also curious, if she did go to college, would she be the highest ranked ITF junior player to enrol in college?
Teen Tennis Results are available here:
http://www.lta.org.uk/Newsroom/Results/LatestResults/
I understand that Brennan Boyajian have been suspended for 3 months for what happened in his match against Jaklitsch in the Winter Supers effective Dec 29th. This caused him to withdraw from the Tennis Plaza Cup tounament in FL where he was the #1 seed this past weekend.
Juniortennis.com had a little article following the Teen Tennis in England and saw where Micah Decoster barely beat the 12's semi-finalist at the Orange Bowl. A guy who lost to Mitchell Kruger badly at the Eddie Herr in the 12's. 7 out of 8 are still in so they are doing pretty good it looks like.
How does the USTA suspend someone and then give them wildcards in the same breath....don't get it.
What happened in the Boyajian/Jaklitsh match? I must have missed it.
A turn for the worse at Teen Tennis for the boys. Not only did Mika DeCoster lose in the Round of 16, but Emmett Egger got routined 6-2,6-2 by some local British guy that I've never heard of named George Morgan. This guy didn't even make the GBR travelling team to the Orange Bowl this year as far as I know.
Christian Harrison killed the 4th seed and Sean Berman (New Zealander who recently moved to Southern Cal) is still in with another close win. This is not great that our two best performers are a New Zealander and a 12 year old.
There's nothing discouraging about a 12-year-old doing well playing up in classification, but it does appear that the 1993 group is thin in talent. I was surprised by Egger's defeat, and especially by how he lost. He actually did pretty well at the Orange Bowl, where he beat Sebastian Lavie, a finalist at Les Petits As last year.
Perhaps more disconcerting is the performance of the U.S. boys at the last two Grand Slams. At the U.S. Open, 14 of the 18 Americans lost in the first round. Only Donald Young advanced beyond the second round. At the Australian Open, only one of five Americans got out of the first round, and none got past the second round. The losses weren't even very competitive. Many of our best juniors didn't compete at the AO, but I still would have expected slightly better results.
this is not great that our 2 best performers are a new zealander and a 12 year old. why not? that 12 year old won the orange bowl as an 11 year old and finished in the final 16 of the 14's this year. imagine the press he would get if he were actually foreign and performed this well at that age.
Agree the 93 boys are a weak group in general, have seen them all played, no x factors there. Christian Harrison is a '94. The 92s, except for Evan King and Ryan Harison, don't seem to be world beaters either. Saramento is good but small. The group w/ a lot of depth is the 91s, starting with Rhyne Williams at the beginning of the year, Frank Carlton, Chase Buchanan and Tennys Sandgren in the middle, Denis Lin, Alex Domijon in the fall and Harry Fowler at the very end of December. Of course Williams and Buchanan are playing at a differnt level.
I agree that the 93's are weak, notwithstanding their good performance at the 12's Orange Bowl last year which was partly due to the fact that many international players didn't play and also that the top US 93 players are primarily defensive specialists that worked well in the 12's.
I also agree that the 91's have some great players at the top with Rhyne Williams, Chase Buchanon, Dennis Lin and JT Sundling (who you forgot to mention) and also that they have a lot of depth. However, while Tennys Sangren is an excellent player, I wouldn't put him at the very top of that class year as you have done.
I also disagree with your comment that the 92's are weak. Ryan Harrison is better than almost all of the 91's and even beat Chase Buchanon to win the entire Teen Tennis B14s at age 13. Also, Evan King just won the B16's Super National Winters before he turned 15. Don't forget Kudla who won the Orange Bowl back draw after losing first round in the regular, including his 6-3, 6-2 win over Evan King in that tournament. Finally, Jack Sock is a 92 who is on pace to get more gold balls than anyone. The only thing that has stopped him over the past 10 months has been a foot injury but he's starting to come back.
Bob Van Overbeek and Junior Ore are also 92s. Overbeek lost to Tomic in the QFs of the Orange Bowl. He also just lost 7-6, 7-5 to Michael McClune in the qualifying draw of this week's Futures tournament. That's a good result. Ore won the National Championships in San Antonio.
The 91s do appear to be strong. It's probably one of the strongest groups we've seen in a while. Williams, Buchanan, and Domijan is a great top three, and then there's quality depth after that. Bo Seal and Devin Britton are a couple other players worth mentioning from the 91s.
The 90s and 93s seem relatively weak, particularly the 93s.
thats a joke.. the 92s are very strong.. they have great depth.. harrison, king, cox, ore, kudla, sarmiento, bernstein.. its really strong.. the 91s are very strong too.. but i would never say that harrison is better than all the 91s cuz thats not true at all..
I don't know why everyone thinks the 93's are so weak. 3 out of 8 (2 boys and 1 girl) are in the semis of Teen Tennis. Our best finish in a while.
".. but i would never say that harrison is better than all the 91s cuz thats not true at all.."
You have to read more carefully. He never said that Harrison is better than all of the 91s; he said better than "almost all" of the 91's.
Another factor in why the US 93's are weaker than they seem is that Carlos Boluda of Spain is clearly the best 93 in the World as he won the Teen Tennis and Les Petits LAST year when he just turned 13 in January of 2006; and so he could have played again this year. He also won the Nike International two years in a row starting with his first year and absolutely killed virtually everyone something like 1 & 0 the first time he won it.
Boluda could have played in Teen Tennis and Les Petits this year but decided not to bother. Like virtually all the Spaniards, he never plays in the Orange Bowl either so not as many people hear about him in the U.S.
Boluda may be the best 13 year old boy in history because I don't think any boy has ever won Nike International AND Les Petits with another year to go in the age group. And, most importantly, he destroyed everyone in most of his matches when he won Nike the first time.
Perhaps Christian Harrison will match this soon because I don't think any boy has ever accomplished what Christian did which is win the Orange Bowl B12's with another year left in the age group. Don't everyone bombard us with comments about girls doing this or boys in older age groups which is more common.
I believe Boluda is entered at Les Petit As this year. He is listed as a participant on their website.
The USTA seems to pick the talent tree too early when it goes for the defensive players to support. Perhaps they should take the long view and look toward future development rather than focusing on a few 12-13 year-olds who know how to keep the ball in play at a young age. Can't blame them, because they need instant winners, but something needs to change if we are going to develop future champions.
"What happened in the Boyajian/Jaklitsh match? I must have missed it."
Boyajian blew a fuse and threw his racquet and ripped the awning on the court in response to Jaklische's hooking. He was defaulted at the match but appealed and lost in 3.
Donald Young and Sam Querry distill the development dilemma. 3 years ago nobody would have given Sam's future a chance versus Donald's. Our first true glimpse might be when we have full grown kids competing against full grown kids (or men). They need to learn how to play a big, mature (probably unsuccessfuly) game when they are young and then grow into it.
I don't think Querrey was even ranked in the top 50 in his final year in the 14s, was he? I don't know for sure, but suspect he did not make the traveling team for his year. He did lose in the first round of winter nationals in the 16s the year he turned 15 (2002). It goes to show how you just never know who will be successful at the pro level until all the factors come together (growth, strength, desire, talent, maturity etc.) But this is a great game, no matter how far the kids go with it. To those kids who represented the US in Europe, I hope they continue to do well and stay with the game, wherever it takes them.
"I believe Boluda is entered at Les Petit As this year. He is listed as a participant on their website."
Collette, could you please give us the website for the draw at Les Petit As? As is the case every year, it's very difficult to find.
Sorry about that. Try this:
Les Petit As
This address will take you to the home page of the website:
http://www.lespetitsas.fr/index.php?change_langue=en
If it's not already in English, scroll over the the right-hand side of the page and look for the British flag in the top right-hand corner.
The draws can be found by clicking "Draws in Live" (it's a red box) at the bottom of the page under "To see:" Then select the category and click the draw to the right. You'll also see a link for the qualifying draw on the left-hand side of the page. There are PDF files of the draws under "Matches Programming." Take note of the live score feature as well.
Emmett Egger won his first round match 6-3, 6-3. Christian Harrison won 6-3, 6-4.
Mike Decoster finished qualifying with a 6-4, 6-3 win. He won all three of his qualifying matches in straight sets. Next up he plays Lukas Vrnak, the runner-up at Teen Tennis.
Sean Berman lost 6-4, 6-4 in the third round of qualifying.
Thanks for the info. As an Apple user, I didn't realize that the site only makes sense with Internet Explorer.
Great discussion.
Which is the stronger tournament: Les Petit or 14's Orange bowl?
The 14s Orange Bowl is the top 14 and under tournament in the world bar none because all the top players play it, not the case for Les Pettis
Les Pettis is hyped a lot more and marketed as the most prestigious… there are ball boys, chaired matches , they sell tickets and run it like a pro event. But the draws are significantly smaller, 64 main and 128 qualifying and high % of French players in the qualifying and those in the main are hand picked by a their countries. The orange bowl 14s has a qualifying draw of 248 w/ kids from all over the world and a main draw of 128. Some of the best players in recent years have not played les petits such as Bernard Tomic, Rhyne Williams, Gregor Demetrov but they all show up for the orange bowl 14s. They USTA needs to do a better job of marketing the Orange and stop referring to les petits as the most prestigious 14 in under tournament in the world when their own orange bowl merits that tag.
Grigor Dimitrov did play Les Petis As.
I'm sure you could list a number of top ranked players who played Les Petis and not the Orange Bowl. Carlos Boluda, considered to be better than Tomic by some, did not play the Orange Bowl. It seems like very few Spanish play the Orange Bowl.
I read your summary of the first round in les petites as. You know there are girls playing there as well..and all 4 are in the round of 16.
Bernard Tomic won the Jr. Orange Bowl in the last year of his age group just a few weeks before aging out.Les Petits is in January a month later when all of the guys you mentioned have lost their advantage of physical growth and aged out so its tough to compare. Rhyne Williams the same. Dimitrov never won the Jr. Orange Bowl. Carlos Beluda and Christian Harrison are both playing the Les Petits. Harrison won the Orange Bowl with another year still left and Beluda won the Les Petits last year as a 1st year 14s so as you can see it would be hard to say its not as prestigous according to the age requirements.
You say that "Les Petits is in January a month later when all of the guys you mentioned have lost their advantage of physical growth and aged out so its tough to compare", wellthere are aslo kids w/ November and December birthdays who age out as well and can't compete and those born in January 93 still have a physical edge over those born in December 93. But agree w/ you that at a young age six to 8 months cna make a huge difference in size and maturity.
How do you find the world rankings of the 14 and unders? I have only been able to find the world rankings of the 18 and unders.
I'm not aware of any world rankings for players other than 18 and unders.
Tennis Europe does rankings by age divisions. That website address is tenniseurope.org.
Here is an article from a New Zealand newspaper on Sean Berman.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/3957958a15599.html
Does anyone know how the elegibility works for representing USTA?
Is the USTA putting time and money into a kid who could end up playing for New Zealand?
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