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Sunday, December 27, 2009

Winter Nationals, Casablanca Cup Underway

There is really no off-season in junior tennis, with just days between the Junior Orange Bowl and the USTA Winter Nationals and a mere two weeks between the last ITF Grade A of 2009, the Dunlop Orange Bowl, and the first of 2010, the Casablanca Cup.

The USTA Winter Nationals began with two rounds of singles today (except for the 12s) in order to complete the 128-draw events by Friday, January 1. The top two seeds in the 16s and 18s divisions, who play in Scottsdale, Arizona, are Zachary Leslie and Daniel Kosakowski (B18s), Ellen Tsay and Danielle Collins (G18s), Jackson Withrow and Nolan Paige (B16s) and Ashley Dai and Megan Kurey (G16s). For complete draws, see the TennisLink site.

The top seeds the 12s and 14s, who play in Tucson, Arizona, are: Gage Brymer and Jack Murray (B14s), Gabriella Andrews and Christina Makarova (G14s), Spencer Furman and Sameer Kumar (B12s), and Alexandra Letzt and Nicole Frankel (G12s). For complete draws, see the TennisLink site.

Qualifying for the Grade A Casablanca Cup outside Mexico City began yesterday and was completed today, with the main draw beginning Monday. Three of the top four boys seeds are Americans, all of whom train at the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Maryland: Mitchell Frank (1), Denis Kudla (2) and Junior Ore (4). Dennis Novikov (6), Dane Webb (11) and Campbell Johnson (16) are the other seeded players from the U.S.

Orange Bowl champion Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada is the top girls seed, with Polina Leykina of Russia seeded second. The seeded U.S. girls are Noel Scott (9), Monica Turewicz (13), Brooke Bolender (14) and Sachia Vickery (15). Vickery came through qualifying, so she must have been a late entry.

The Casablanca Cup is one of the very few junior tournaments held at high altitude, so it requires some adjustments from those who spent December competing in Florida.

The complete draws can be found at the tournament website, and for a preview, see the ITF Junior website.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

"...16s and 18s divisions, who play in Scottsdale, Arizona..."

The first 4 days of the tournament are held all over the Phoenix area.

Boys 18s: Phoenix
Boys 16s: Scottsdale
Girls 18s: Mesa
Girls 16s: Tempe

Only for the last 2 days do players converge to one location in Scottsdale. Unfortunately, that location combines some of the very worst viewing with some of the best. Several of the courts are nearly impossible for spectators to see through unless they sit on the ground below wind-screen level, as said screens are very thick and dark.

Colette Lewis said...

@10isdad:
Thanks for the correction. Obviously, I've never been to the Winter Nationals, or I wouldn't have made this mistake.

wi tennis said...

10isdad, You are very smart! It's great that you know all of the sites! Thank you for the correction. Otherwise, the people of Mesa might revolt against Zoo Tennis for not giving them the respect that their tennis center deserves!!!???

For parents not to see the courts, might be a good thing. Then, the match is definitely guaranteed to have no parent involvement. The kids can just play. The crazy tennis parents won't stare down a kid every time he misses a shot.

Happy Holidays!

John said...

WI tennis – wow your post comes across like you are very tainted about life with Jr. Tennis. 10isdad just posted some info as info for what it’s worth.

Your comment about parents not seeing the court being a good thing describes a VERY small % of the tennis parents out there and for those few, I would agree with you. Maybe you’ve encountered one too many of those which explains your “glass half empty” attitude, but mine is just the opposite.

For me, if I’ve traveled with my child across the country (or across the city for that matter), I’d like the opportunity to watch them play and compete. Also, imagine if you sent a coach with your child to a tourney and that coach wasn’t able to observe and help coach the player afterwards.

Some players and (their) parents tend to have issues with every event they play in. Most of the national-level players from each age division know who they are and learn to deal with it….maybe you should jump on that bandwagon??

Unknown said...

Well, Colette, we'd love to have you visit our fair city.

Obviously, it's a tough time what with the holidays. Normally I'd talk about the glorious weather, but those couple weeks during Winter Nats and the Copper Bowl tend to be some of the coldest of the year.

Still, it's a shame that one of the biggest and best tennis blog authors doesn't come to one of the super nationals. Hopefully one of these days you'll make it out!