Pick The US Open Junior Winners in Post #1500
The day before the U.S. Open starts is one of the quietest days in professional tennis, so it seems the perfect time to start another Pick The Winner competition, this one for the U.S. Open Junior Championships. The August 21st acceptance lists are here, but there are often a great many changes during the final three days leading up to Sunday's start. With five U.S. girls in both the main and junior draws, (Kristie Ahn, Gail Brodsky, Asia Muhammad, Melanie Oudin and Coco Vandeweghe) there is a chance that success in singles or doubles in the first week could cause some withdrawals. Ahn has drawn No. 6 seed Dinara Safina (see this Star-Ledger story for how she feels about that draw), Brodsky plays No. 13 Agnes Szavay and Vandeweghe No. 2 seed Jelena Jankovic. Muhammad plays unseeded Frenchwoman Aravane Rezai, ranked 74, who was upsetby Vandeweghe in the first round of March's Las Vegas challenger, the tournament where Muhammad reached the finals. Oudin drew another wild card, 18-year-old Australian Jessica Moore, who is also entered in the junior draw, and due to her 178 WTA ranking will likely be seeded in the 5-8 group. Unfortunately, the draw doesn't come out until the day before the tournament starts, so unlike Kalamazoo, there is no opportunity to take that into account when making a pick.
The men's doubles draw is out at usopen.org, and there are ten U.S. teams as well as three U.S. men--Travis Parrott, Jamie Cerratani and Eric Butorac--partnering non-U.S. players. Chase Buchanan and Ryan Harrison have drawn the unseeded team of Spain's Tommy Robredo and Argentina's Sergio Roitman. It's good to see NCAA doubles champion Kaes Van't Hof receiving a wild card. He will play with fellow Southern Californian Michael McClune.
So, leave a comment (remember, no anonymous comments will be published) on this, post number 1500 on zootennis.com, with who you think will win the boys and girls championships. Feel free to add a dark horse, and if you don't pick U.S. players to win, which U.S. player will be in it the longest.
10 comments:
#1500----Ryan Harrison for the Junior Boys, Kristie Ahn for the Junior Girls.
For the boys, its got to be Bernard Tomic. It's tough to call the last American without the draws, but I'd say Harrison and Klahn could both get to the quarters.
dimitrov my favorite. raonic sleeper.
I would like to see Ryan Harrison win and is my pick to win with Jerzy Janowicz from Poland as runnerup.
sorry to dredge up old arguments, but did anyone notice Kandath dismantle Kudla 3, 2 in the qualifying round of the grade 1 itf in Repentigny, Canada and then beat Britton 6(2), 1? It would be something to see him get far enough to get a special exempt into the us open and knock off a few more wildcards
Chase Buchanan is going to win the Junior Boys.
Kandath is certainly good enough to beat anyone in the draw, but he also just lost first round of the ITF-Grade 3 last week, in straight sets. Still, he should have played Boys 16s at K-Zoo.
My pick is Jenkins in the boys with Dimitrov a close runner-up. Oudin for the girls.
to dont be mad
Kandath lost in first rd of level 3 last week. not sure what his wins over Kudla and Britton mean as neither is top 100 ITF and both are american players. Dont agree with several of the WC selections but not sure if Kandath should have been among them. He has his top six ITF tournaments count for his ITF ranking which is still 194. He also lost in first round of Easter Bowl, which was a G1. He's a nice player and with the 10 tournamnets he played he certainly had enough opportunities to qualify on his own for at least the qualies but fell short and that is the bottom line.
dimitrov for the boys with buchanan being last among americans and oudin for the girls
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