Seeds, Draws for Junior Orange Bowl; Australian Open Junior Acceptances; Inaugural America's Cup Results; Eddie Herr 16s and 18s Photos

The Junior Orange Bowl begins Wednesday at four sites in the Miami area.  New this year is 128-player draws for all four age divisions; previously the Boys 14s had been a 256 draw with byes for the seeds.

The locations are the same as last year: Salvadore Park(clay) for boys 12s; Biltmore Tennis Center for girls 12s; Crandon Park for boys 14s and University of Miami for girls 14s.

The top 8 seeds for all four divisions are below:

B12s:
1. Alexander Blockx, BEL
2. Juncheng Shang, USA
3. Nishesh Basavareddy, USA
4. Rodrigo Pacheco Mendez, MEX
5. Cooper Williams, USA
6. Marc Majdandzic, GER
7. Lennon Jones, JPN
8. Learner Tien, USA

B14s:
1. Alexander Bernard, USA
2. Shintaro Mochizuki, JPN
3. Christopher Li, PER
4. Francisco Lamas, VEN
5. Jacobi Bain, BAH
6. Saud Alhogbani, KSA
7. Alvaro Guillen-Meza, ECU
8. Joel Pierleoni, GBR

G12s:
1. Linda Fruhvirtova, CZE
2. Sofia Costoulas, BEL
3. Alexandra Eala, PHI
4. Tsehay Driscoll, USA
5. Melisa Ercan, TUR
6. Stephanie Yakoff, USA
7. Priya Nelson, USA
8. Clervie Ngounoue, USA

G14s:
1. Alexandra Yepifanova, USA
2. Noa Krznaric, CRO
3. Charlotte Owensby, USA
4. Vivian Ovrootsky, USA
5. Clarine Lerby, NED
6. Daria Tomashevskaya, CAN
7. Kailey Evans, USA
8. Kyoka Kubo, JPN

Complete draws and match times can be found at the TennisLink site.

The acceptances are out for the Australian Open Junior Championships, which begin January 20th.  As usual, American participation is meager, with just five girls and five boys receiving direct acceptance.  The boys: Sebastian Korda, Andrew Fenty, Tristan Boyer, Drew Baird and Trey Hilderbrand.  The girls: Alexa Noel, Elysia Bolton, Natasha Subhash, Hurricane Tyra Black, Coco Gauff. 

Peyton Stearns and Nicole Mossmer are 1 and 3 out of the main draw, and should move out of qualifying well before the tournament begins, as withdrawals are commonplace.  There are four top 10 girls currently entered: defending champion Marta Kostyuk(UKR), Xinyu Wang(CHN), En Shuo Liang(TPE) and Maria Osorio Serrano(COL).  Two top 10 boys are on the acceptance list: Timofey Skatov(RUS) and Marko Miladinovic(SRB).

In the week between the Eddie Herr and Junior Orange Bowl, there's a lull for the 13- and 14-year-olds, so the USTA has stepped in to arrange a competition at the National Campus in Lake Nona for teams from the United States, South America, Canada and Central American/Caribbean. The United States won the overall trophy, with the USA girls team and the South American boys team winning subgroup competitions, which were completed last Friday.  The final standings can be viewed here, and the daily match results can be found here.

On Monday, I posted photos of the singles semifinalists and doubles finalists for the 12s and 14s divisions of the Eddie Herr.  The 16s and ITF photos are below.  My recap of the tournament can be found at the Tennis Recruiting Network.