Junior Championships at Roland Garros Feature Half Dozen U.S. Players in Wednesday's Round of 16
With a long day of travel and two intense weeks of college tennis behind me, tonight's post will be a brief rundown of the junior action at Roland Garros the past several days.
As I posted on Sunday, Junior Ore beat top seed and the No. 1 ranked junior Daniel Berta of Sweden in the first round, but Ore wasn't able to build on that win, losing to Agustin Velotti of Argentina in the second round. Nick Chappell, Dane Webb and No. 13 seed Mitchell Frank also won a round of singles but fell in their second matches. No. 6 seed Denis Kudla is through to the third round, where he'll face No. 9 seed Duilio Beretta of Peru. Andrea Collarini, who recently changed his nationality from Argentina to the US, is also through to the round of 16.
Australia's Jason Kubler, who will take over the top spot in the ITF boys junior rankings next Monday, with Berta failing to defend his Grade A points, lost in the second round, to unseeded Mate Pavic of Croatia. Argentina has three players through to the boys final 16, the most of any country.
In the girls championships, Monica Puig, the top seed, Beatrice Capra (9), Lauren Davis (10) and 2009 French girls semifinalist Sloane Stephens all have reached the third round. The U.S. is the only country with more than two players in the last 16. France and Ukraine have two.
Puig plays one of the Ukrainians, Lyudmyla Kichenok, the 13th seed, while the other three U.S. competitors face unseeded players.
Capra, the Italian Open champion last month in Milan, plays Danka Kovinic of Montenegro; Davis, the runnerup to Capra in Milan, plays Spanish qualifier Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor, and Stephens meets Chantal Skamlova of Slovakia.
There will be no sweep of the junior slam titles by a girl this year, as Australian Open winner Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic lost in the first round in France, to French wild card Morgane Pons. Tiago Fernandes of Brazil, the Australian boys champion, has advanced to the third round in Paris.
In doubles, Stephens, Capra and Raymond Sarmiento are still alive. All three are playing with partners from other countries.
For more from Capra, see this story from the ITF junior website, and her blog at usta.com
For the draws, results, and live scoring, see rolandgarros.com.
The Longines exhibition event for select international 12-and-under players gets underway Thursday at Roland Garros. Laura Fishbein of New York is among the competitors. For more on the event and Fishbein, check out this release on tenniswire.org.
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