Korda, Osuigwe Head Roland Garros Junior Championships Acceptance Lists; ITF Announces Grand Slam Development Fund European Summer Teams

photo credit: Aaina Sharma/unsplash

The acceptances for the Roland Garros Junior Championships were released today, with five US boys and nine US girls receiving entry into the main draw.  2018 Australian Open champion and ITF World No. 1 Sebastian Korda has entered, as has defending champion and girls No. 1 Whitney Osuigwe.  Korda has not played a junior event since Australia, with Osuigwe's last junior event December's Orange Bowl.

As is always the case with the French Open, the fields are strong.  The top 25 boys have entered, with the initial ITF junior ranking cutoff at 46.  Yshai Oliel of Israel, whose last junior tournament was the 2017 US Open, received entry based on his ATP ranking of 597.  There are several top 10 girls missing: Claire Liu, Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine and Amanda Anisimova, but only two other Top 30 players didn't enter: Ann Li and Serbia's Olga Danilovic. The girls initial ranking cutoff was 48, with Sada Nahimana of Burundi receiving main draw entry as the highest ranked player from Africa (52) in the Top 80 and Iga Swiatek of Poland (330) and Moyuka Uchijima of Japan (386) receiving main draw entry due to their WTA rankings. En Shuo Liang of Taiwan, the reigning girls Australian Open champion, is in the field.

In addition to Korda, the US boys in the draw are: Tristan Boyer, Drew Baird, Andrew Fenty and Trey Hilderbrand.  Brandon Nakashima is two out of the main draw, with Emilio Nava and Govind Nanda also accepted into qualifying.

Joining Osuigwe in the main draw are US girls Alexa Noel, Coco Gauff, Dalayna Hewitt, Caty McNally, Katie Volynets, Gabby Price, Natasha Subhash and Lea Ma.  US girls in qualifying are Hurricane Tyra Black, Hailey Baptiste, Peyton Stearns, Kacie Harvey and Chloe Beck.

2017 US Open girls finalist Gauff, who turned 14 last month, hasn't played since the Australian Open in January.

The next Grade A, the Trofeo Bonfiglio in Milan, begins in less than two weeks.  Both Korda and Liang have withdrawn, but the fields are still strong, with the cutoffs in the 60s and today the final day to withdraw.

The ITF has a junior summer travel team for players from developing tennis countries and the organization announced the names of those selected last week for the European junior circuit schedule. This year there are two teams, with different schedules, which can be found in this ITF release.

The Boys Team A:
Ray Ho (TPE)
Stefan Palosi (ROU)
Daniel Michalski (POL)
Philip Henning (RSA)

The Girls Team A:
Daniela Vismane (LAT)
Sada Nahimana (BDI)
Maria Gabriela Rivera Corado (GUA)
Gergana Topalova (BUL)
Mariam Dalakishvili (GEO)

The Boys Team B:

Seon Yong Han (KOR)
Sebastian Rodriguez (PER)
Minjong Park (KOR)
Alexander Zgirovsky (BLR)

The Girls Team B:

Oona Orpana (FIN)
Romina Ccuno (PER)
Rut Galindo (GUA)
Ana Geller (ARG)