Florida State Closed, Southern Cal Sectional, Grass Courts, Comment Reminder
With the French Open Juniors winding down--it will be Jerzy Janowicz of Poland against Tsung-Hua Yang of Chinese Taipei in the boys final and two Romanians, Elena Bogdan and Simona Halep, for the girls title. Janowicz, of course was a finalist at the U.S. Open Jrs. last year, and Yang was runner-up this year at the Australian Open Jrs., but neither girl has been in a Grand Slam final before. The doubles finals are Saturday, but the singles championships will not be played until Sunday.
We are making our annual trip to Philadelphia for the International Grass Courts this weekend, and I'll be reporting from there all of next week. For the list of competitors, click here.
The Florida State Closed gets underway on Saturday, and it is a very important tournament consisting of championships for 10s, 12s, 14s, 16s and 18s. Not only does it have a long and distinguished history in Florida, but it also awards grants to the winners for upcoming USTA Nationals. According to the USTAFlorida website:
All 16s and 18s finalists will receive a $1,250 travel reimbursement to be used at the next National Clay-Courts or National Hard-Courts Championship, while all 12s and 14s semifinalists will receive $625 for the first time in State Closed history! (Details available online and at event. Receipts must be submitted to cover expenses. NCAA approved).
And the 106th Southern California Junior Sectional is gearing up for competition, which spreads over two long weekends beginning June 14, and like the Florida Closed, is only for players in the section. It also has 10s-18s, but employs block seeding, where the top 16 players advance to the second weekend, with the rest of the competitors playing for one of the remaining 16 spots. The eight seeds in each division are posted. See the TennisLink site for more information on "the largest annual junior [tournament] in the United States.
And finally, a reminder that anyone wishing to comment must choose a name by selecting the Name/URL choice in the identity section (the URL is optional). Anonymous is not an option that I can remove from the choices, but if you use it, your comment will not be published.
4 comments:
Whats the deal with kids from Taipei, China, Korea and Japan? It seems like there is always a couple players who are highly ranked in the juniors from the Orient, but none of them ever do squat in the pros. Taik-Lee is in his mid 30s, Jimmy Wang never panned out. I guess Nishikori looks like he will succeed, but he is really a Florida kid.
austin,
I'm assuming you're only speaking about the men's tour as there have been quite a number of female players from the countries you mentioned who have done quite nicely on tour.
With the men I believe it's a combination of a few things in particular. Firstly, the players seem to, typically, lack size. In the juniors that isn't such an issue as you can win on wheels alone (the Asian players do seem to all have good speed) but, on tour it does make life difficult. Matsuoka, Lee and Srichaphan are three exceptions and I don't think it's any coincidence that they've succeeded as professionals where others have failed. Secondly, in my opinion, the quality of coaching has been extremely poor. That seemed especially true on the women's side where they all seemed to have exactly the same mechanical and often out-dated technique (a slice forehand wasn't unheard of amongst the girls) plus a regimented style of play that allowed no room for individuality and natural flair. The ones who succeeded did so in spite of the coaching, not as a result of it but the ones who failed could point the finger at the shaky foundations they were given.
Of course, that's only my opinion.
Wow, Christian Harrison is playing 18s for the Grass Courts. Don't know if Christian has turned 14 yet, but I'm trying to think of other examples on the boys side of players playing national-level 18s events at 13 or 14? I know Sampras did. Chang won Kzoo when he was still 15 I think, but I think he played 16s when he was 14. Hope to see both Harrison brothers in Kzoo this year.
I love the idea of FL section offering travel stipends to the sectional finalist. That is a great motivator and welcomed in this very expensive sport. It's a good way of giving back to the players and their families. Chapeau bas the the FL Section.
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