Tomic Falls in Third Round of French Juniors; Stephens Sole U.S. Player Remaining in Singles

The quarterfinals are set at the French Open Junior Championships, and there isn't a No. 1 seed remaining in singles or doubles, boys or girls.

In today's third round, No. 2 seed Bernard Tomic of Australia joined many of his fellow seeds on the sidelines, losing 7-6(2), 7-6(6) to Dominik Schulz of Germany, seeded 14th. Germany is the only country with two boys quarterfinalists, with Richard Becker, who took out No. 1 seed Liang-Chi Huang of Taipei in the first round, the other. Today the unseeded Becker defeated the last U.S. boy in the draw, No. 13 seed Tennys Sandgren, 6-4, 6-3. No. 3 ssed Andrea Collarini of Argentina, who is the only top eight seed remaining, has won his three matches in straight sets. An unseeded finalist is assured, with the four remaining players in the top half all unseeded.

Before Guy McCrea returned to Great Britain he had an opportunity to see the third round match between No. 3 seed Ksenia Pervak of Russia and No. 14 seed Christina McHale of the U.S. The Australian Open girls champion kept her chance for a calendar Grand Slam alive (take that Rafa and Serena), with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 victory over McHale. Here are his comments:

Just watched most of Pervak's win over McHale on 17. Quality match for the first two sets ... epic 20 min game for McHale to break back for 4-4 in the second set which of course she went onto win. She just ran out of gas in the decider ... it was warm out there and Pervak was generally the aggressor on most points so McHale had to do a lot of running out there! Still a good effort and above all an entertaining match especially for opening two sets ... I think both these girls have futures on the WTA Tour.

Pervak is one of three Russians still vying for the title. One will be eliminated on Thursday with Pervak meeting unseeded Valeria Solovieva, a Russian who trains in the U.S. Solovieva defeated Beatrice Capra 6-2, 6-4, leaving Sloane Stephens as the lone American girl in the singles draw. Fifteenth seed Stephens, who had the day off in singles, meets No. 11 Silvia Njiric of Croatia on Thursday.

There are three U.S. teams still in the hunt for a doubles title. Capra and Lauren Embree, seeded 7th, advanced to the quarterfinals when Anna Orlik discovered she had a broken bone in her foot, keeping her and her partner Laura Robson for taking the court in the second round Tuesday. McHale and Stephens, seeded eighth, lost their second round match Wednesday to Katarena Paliivets of Canada and Chanel Simmonds of South Africa.

Harry Fowler and Mitchell Frank lost in the second round today to the seventh-seeded Japanese team of Hiroyasu Ehara and Shuichi Sekiguchi 6-2, 6-1. But unseeded Devin Britton and Jordan Cox reached the quarterfinals by battling back for a 2-6, 7-5, 10-5 win over top seeds Collarini and Agustin Velotti of Argentina. They join Evan King and Denis Kudla, who reached the quarterfinals on Tuesday.

For complete draws, see the Roland Garros website. For the ITF story on the day's action, click here.

I realize I have been neglecting other news during these first few days of the French Juniors, but I've got a stockpile of stories I'll linking to in the next couple of days.

Tags: junior tennis, French Junior Championships, Dominik Schulz, Colette Lewis