Junior Orange Bowl Wrap; No Break for Junior Tennis Players

My Tennis Recruiting Network weekly article is the Junior Orange Bowl roundup, which borrows heavily from the final story I wrote last Sunday for zootennis and the Junior Orange Bowl media report. Although my daily JOB updates were used by the Miami Herald during the week, Josh Rey, who did the 16s and 18s Orange Bowl media job for usta.com, was hired to cover the finals, and his story is here.

I may be taking a few days off, but not many junior players have a break this time of year. The USTA Winter Nationals have begun in Arizona, with the 12s and 14s in Tucson and the 16s and 18s in the Scottsdale area. Michael Rinaldi and Bjorn Fratangelo are the top two seeds in boys 14s; Lauren Davis and Kyle McPhillips in the girls 14s. Grayson Goldin and Mackenzie McDonald are Nos. 1 and 2 in the boys 12s and Brooke Austin and Vicky Duval are the top two seeds in the girls 12s. All except Austin played deep into the Junior Orange bowl draws. The TennisLink site for the 12s and 14s is here.

Sekou Bangoura Jr. and Clay Thompson are the boys 16s top seeds; Kate Fuller and Hanna Mar are Nos. 1 and 2 in the girls 16s. Bradley Klahn and Luke Marchese lead the field in the boys 18s and the top two seeds in the girls 18s are Keri Wong and Stephany Chang. The TennisLink site for the 16s and 18s is here.

The first ITF Grade A of the year, the Casablanca Cup, has progressed to the quarterfinals, where the only two Americans remaining in singles, Harry Fowler and Ty Trombetta, meet each other Friday. The ITF Junior website scores aren't being updated regularly, but the tournament's own website has draws and results.