My Wimbledon Junior Preview, Five US Juniors in First Round Action Saturday; Bencic, Kyrgios Win Roehampton; Cako Earns Place on USTA Collegiate Team
My Tennis Recruiting Network preview of the Wimbledon junior championships was published this morning, prior to the completion of qualifying play and the Roehampton Grade 1 finals. Only one American, Dasha Ivanova, made it through to the main draw. Ivanova defeated No. 7 seed Marika Akkerman of Canada 6-1, 7-5. No. 4 seed Katrine Steffensen lost to No. 14 seed Deborah Chiesa of Italy 6-3, 7-6(3). No. 3 seed Martin Redlicki lost a tough one to No. 13 seed Wishaya Trongcharoenchaikkul of Thailand in today's final round of qualifying 3-6, 6-1, 10-8.
The qualifiers have not been placed, possibly because all matches weren't completed today, but the qualifiers always get the weekend off at Wimbledon, so the incomplete draw doesn't impact Saturday's 31 matches.
Five US players are on the schedule Saturday, with Noah Rubin playing Luke Bambridge of Great Britain, No. 15 seed Louisa Chirico playing Helen Ploskina of Ukraine, Luca Corinteli playing No. 10 seed Johan Tatlot of France, and on a court to be determined, Spencer Papa playing Hyeon Chung of Korea. No. 5 seed Taylor Townsend, Stefan Kozlov, Johnnise Renaud and Ivanova will play their first round matches Monday, with Sunday the traditional day off at Wimbledon.
The ITF preview of Wimbledon juniors is available here.
Belinda Bencic of Switzerland and Nick Kyrgios of Australia, the No. 1 seeds at Roehampton and at Wimbledon, collected the Roehampton titles today. Bencic, whose junior winning streak is now at 28, beat unseeded Iryna Shymanovich of Belarus 6-4, 6-0, while Kyrgios defeated No. 3 seed Alexander Zverev of Germany 6-3, 6-1.
Top seeds Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic and Carol Zhao of Canada won the girls doubles at Roehampton, beating Bencic and Petra Uberalova of Slovakia, the No. 2 seeds, 1-6, 6-4, 13-11. The boys doubles title was also decided in a match tiebreaker, with No. 4 seeds Nicolas Jarry of Chile and Frederico Silva of Portugal defeating No. 3 seeds Pedro Cachin of Argentina and Guillermo Nunez of Chile 7-6(3), 6-7(1), 10-5.
Rain disrupted third round play today, but wild card Alison Riske of the US came through with a big win over Urszula Radwanska of Poland 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. Riske will play again on Saturday, since her match today was held over from Thursday. Sloane Stephens will play a third set with Petra Cetkovska of the Czech Republic on Saturday to determine whether she will advance to the second week of her third consecutive slam. For more on Riske's win, see this article from Ben Rothenberg of the New York Times.
The USTA Collegiate camp in Carson was completed Wednesday, with Arizona State's Jacqueline Cako winning the competition held for the last spot on the six-player team. Cako defeated Mary Weatherholt of Nebraska 1-6, 7-6(4), 6-4 in the final. Cako joins Stanford's Nicole Gibbs and Krista Hardebeck, UCLA's Robin Anderson, Virginia's Julia Elbaba and Florida's Lauren Embree on the team. The $50,000 Challenger in Sacramento is next on the schedule for the team.
2 comments:
Congrats to Cako, but wow, hard luck for Weatherholt. She has a great NCAAs, but loses in the finals to the top collegian, Gibbs Then, she loses a tight 3 ser match in the finals of summer team qualifying to Cako, who is a top notch player too, as she showed in her NCAA dismantling of Embree.
I know the USTA set out specific qualifying rules for making the team, but you would hope they could find a way to give Weatherholt an opportunity or two this summer. Here is obviously someone who is playing well right now and coming into her own even at a late stage. And, if they selected the team using the same methods as in previous years, there's a high probability she would have made it. Weatherholt (and her story) seems like someone who you want to root for.
Did Elbaba accept her place on the team? She isn't in Sacramento this week for the challenger; she's back home in NY. I was thinking maybe Weatherholt took Elbaba's spot since Weatherholt is in Sacramento.
Also, are all the results from the camp available?
Post a Comment