Three Qualifiers Among 16 Americans in Wimbledon Junior Championships; Bouchard and Coppejans Earn Titles at Roehampton Grade 1

Outside Centre Court Wimbledon on Friday

©Colette Lewis 2012-
Wimbledon--

It's been a long day, with a transatlantic flight to Heathrow, a trip on the tube to the hotel and a journey by bus to the All England Club, but I'm ready for the start of play tomorrow of the Wimbledon Junior Championships--once I get some rest, that is.

In the final round of qualifying today, Catherine Harrison, Stefan Kozlov and Thai Kwiatkowski won their matches to make the main draw. Harrison also qualified last year,  while Kozlov and Kwiatkowski are making their Wimbledon debuts. Also in the main draw is Christina Makarova, who didn't make my Wimbledon preview due to her absence from the French Junior Championships and this week's Grade 1 in Roehampton.

The other American girls in the draw are top seed Taylor Townsend, Chalena Scholl, Allie Kiick, Jennifer Brady, Kyle McPhillips and Sachia Vickery.

The other American boys in the draw are Mitchell Krueger, Noah Rubin, Mackenzie McDonald, Alexios Halebian, Spencer Papa and Connor Farren.

Only half of the 64 first round singles matches will be played on Saturday, but five of the US boys are in action, four of them on Court 7: Farren, Halebian, Papa, McDonald and Krueger.

Krueger will be involved in the marquee match of the day, with the No. 8 seed playing unseeded Kyle Edmund of Great Britain.  As I wrote in my junior preview yesterday, Edmund won a round in men's qualifying last week, and the 2011 US Open boys semifinalist is solid and comfortable on grass. It's not a good draw for either player, to put it mildly. Krueger lost to Edmund in three sets in the second round of the US Open Juniors last year, a match played indoors at the Sound Shore Club.

Sachia Vickery, seeded No. 7, is the only US girl in action Saturday; she plays Ilka Csoregi of Romania, last on Court 16.

It's interesting to note, as I pointed out on Twitter earlier today, that three non-British girls received wild cards into the main draw:  Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, Antonia Lottner of Germany and Kathinka Von Deichmann of Luxembourg. Enzo Couacaud of France is the only wild card in the boys draw who is not from Great Britain.

The complete draws and the order of play for Saturday are available at the tournament website.

Today at Roehampton, Eugenie Bouchard of Canada swept the singles and doubles titles at the Grade 1. The second-seeded Bouchard beat unseeded Carol Zhao in an all-Canadian final 6-1, 1-6, 6-3 in singles, then teamed with Townsend to take the doubles title over unseeded Jennifer Brady and Kyle McPhillips 6-3, 3-6, 10-5.  

In the boys draw, French Open boys champion Kimmer Coppejans of Belgium defeated unseeded Laurent Lokoli of France 6-2, 7-6(5), his 12th straight ITF junior victory.  The boys doubles championship went to No. 4 seeds Luke Saville and Jordan Thompson of Australia, who beat unseeded Evgeny Karlovskiy of Russia and Frederico Silva of Portgugal 6-1, 4-6, 10-6.

The upcoming junior doubles at Wimbledon are not played with no-ad and match tiebreaker scoring, and when teams are tied at 6-6 in the third set, the winner must have a two-game advantage.