Juniors Championships Underway in Australia; Features on Kubler, Robson and Harrison
I spent most of the afternoon writing my Australian Open Juniors preview for the New York Times tennis blog Straight Sets. I'm not making any predictions, although I will install Laura Robson and Jason Kubler as the favorites, but Todd at the WTA Backspin blog has done a girls junior slam prediction, a first for him, and you might be interested in having a look at those (scroll down). Todd knows his stuff.
The ITF Junior site's preview is here.
There have been several features about juniors that may be of interest in advance of the junior tournament.
Laura Robson believes she might have the best of both worlds right now, playing both junior and professional events, according to this Sunday Times profile by Barry Flatman.
Early last week, Neil Harman of the Times featured Ryan Harrison, as did Doug Robson at USA Today.
And although there is no conversation with him, this AAP story looks at Kubler's credentials. Either they counted wrong or I did, but I can come up with "only" 33 straight junior wins.
Mitchell Frank has already won the first set from Australian wild card Jay Adrijic; Madison Keys is third on. Nick Chappell and Ester Goldfeld are not on the Sunday schedule.
See the Australian Open website for draws and live scoring. Kubler is featured on the home page, but the accompanying article fails to mention Laura Robson as a contender.
6 comments:
Speaking of Harrison, is there any update on his brother? I haven't seen anything new on him since his dad posted here about three months ago. At the time he had just gotten off of crutches and was beginning to ride a stationary bike.
I'm sure many who read this blog would appreciate an update from Pat, if he's willing to share.
Agreed about Christian Harrison. Is he still injured? It's a real shame when a talented young player's growth is stalled due to an injury out of their control.
Christian is progressing nicely with his rehab. He is hitting about an hour a day with stationary ballfeeding and liveball hitting crosscourts. He is also allowed to do 10 sprints a day full out. He won't be cleared to do stopping and starting and playing full out till after his next appointment at the Mayo Clinic in early March. We're taking it slowly to make sure the bone heals completely. Thanx for asking.
Thanks for the update, Pat. Glad to hear that there haven't been any setbacks.
Is a full recovery expected? I'm curious as to what the long-term effects of a bone infection might be, if any. Did they have to do a bone graft to replace the infected bone that was removed?
On a side note, has Christian had much of a growth spurt? Last I heard he was 5'3", but that was in May. As I recall, Ryan had his major growth spurt when he was 15.
Colette,
Just want to point out that Julia Cohen has possibly turned pro. She is no longer on the Miami roster, and did not play for the Hurricanes in their first dual match.
David,
There should be no long term affects. He is almost completely healed. They did not have to do a bone graft. They did however have to drill a hole into the femur and go in and clean it out.
He had what they call a Brodie's Abscess which is commonly mistaken for bone cancer as this was. He feels 100% now with no pain or side effects. We are just taking it slow and making sure the bone is completely healed.
He has also had a good growth spurt the last few months and grown about a full inch in that time. If all continues to go well he will hopefully be back to tournament play in April. Thanx for checking on him.
Post a Comment