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Monday, January 11, 2021

ITF Grade 1 in Peru Postponed, Updated South American Schedule; Grade 5 in Connecticut Underway; Kudla's Covid Drama as Australian Open First Round Qualifying Concludes; Korda, Harrison into Delray Beach Semifinals

Although the publicly available ITF junior calendar has not been updated, players were informed today that the ITF Grade 1 in Peru, scheduled to begin February 8th, has been postponed due to the recent pandemic measures adopted in the country. This follows the postponement, a few days ago, of the ITF Grade A in Colombia for similar reasons. According to the email, the four other major events in South America are still on, although the Ecuador Grade 1 tournament will moves a week later, taking the week of the Peru tournament.  The current schedule, with entry deadlines:

J1 Salinas, Ecuador 8-13 February – Entry deadline: 14:00 (GMT), 19 January 2021

J1 Lambare, Paraguay 15-20 February – Entry deadline: 14:00 (GMT),  26 January 2021

J1 Brazil (venue TBC), 22-27 February – Entry deadline: 14:00 (GMT),  2 February 2021

JA Criciuma, Brazil, 1-7 March – Entry deadline: 14:00 (GMT),  9 February 2021

Last week there was only one ITF junior circuit tournament in the world, a Grade 4 in Germany, with five others postponed or canceled, including a Grade 5 in Minnesota. This week six are taking place, including a new Grade 5 in Manchester Connecticut. The top seed in the boys draw, Francisco Tomas Geschwind of Argentina, is already out, having been beaten by wild card Alexander Razeghi.  The girls top seed is something of a surprise, with Reese Brantmeier, who was playing in the $25K final against Vicky Duval in Naples Florida yesterday, taking a wild card into the tournament. She had no trouble in her first round match, defeating Rose Seccia 6-0, 6-1. No. 2 seed Valencia Xu, who, like Brantmeier, is in the Top 100, also won easily, beating wild card Kirsten Hailey 6-1, 6-0. 

The first round of Australian Open qualifying is complete in Doha and Dubai, with Americans going 13-10 overall. Below are the results from Sunday and Monday; all those in bold will play their second round matches on Tuesday. The exception to that is Denis Kudla, who took the court without the results of his latest Covid-19 test, and got the positive results when he was leading Elliot Benchetrit 6-4, 5-3. He finished that game, and the match, but of course must now quarantine, giving his second round opponent a walkover into the final round. Stephanie Myles has more details on how this happened, with Benchetrit obviously frustrated by it all.

Australian Open first round qualifying results of Americans:

Women: (8-6)

Caty McNally[12] d. Daria Snigur(UKR) 6-4, 6-1

Grace Min d. Harriet Dart(GBR) 7-5, 6-2

Whitney Osuigwe d. Katarzyna Kawa[5](POL) 6-4, 6-3

Claire Liu d.  Indy De Vroome(NED) 7-6(5), 6-2

Harmony Tan(FRA) d. Allie Kiick 7-6(4), 6-1

Veronica Cepede Royg(PAR) d. Asia Muhammad 6-3, 6-4

*Ellen Perez(AUS) d. Caroline Dolehide 6-3, 5-7, 7-5 

*Anna Karolina Schmeidlova[20](SVK) d. Usue Arconada 6-7(2), 6-2, 7-6(10-5)

*Sachia Vickery d. Cristina Bucsa(ESP) 6-1, 3-6, 6-2

*Varvara Lepchenko d. Francesca Di Lorenzo[27] 3-6, 6-2, 6-0

*Robin Anderson d. Danielle Lao 4-6, 6-3, 7-5

*Hailey Baptiste d. Victoria Kan(RUS) 7-6(2), 6-2

*played 1st rd Sunday


Men: (5-4)

Denis Kudla[4] d. Elliot Benchetrit(MAR) 6-4, 6-3

Aslan Karatsev[3](RUS) d. Brandon Nakashima 6-2, 6-7(4), 6-2

Maxime Cressy d. Go Soeda[16](JPN) 7-6(3), 6-4

Michael Mmoh d. Danilo Petrovic[24](SRB) 6-3, 6-2

Mitchell Krueger d. Enzo Couacaud(FRA) 3-6, 6-2, 6-2

Mathias Bourgue(FRA) d. Ernesto Escobedo 7-6(5), 6-2

Zhe Li(CHN) d. Thai Kwiatkowksi 4-6, 6-3, 6-4

*Christopher Eubanks l. Rinky Hijikata[WC](AUS) 6-2, 6-3

*Ulises Blanch d. Andrey Kuznetsov(RUS) 6-4, 6-1

*played 1st rd Sunday


Christian Harrison and Sebastian Korda made their first ATP quarterfinal appearances with wins on Saturday at the Delray Beach Open; today, they both made a first ATP semifinal. Harrison defeated Gianluca Mager of Italy, who had beaten Harrison's older brother Ryan in the first round, 7-6(2), 6-4 this afternoon. This evening, Korda, who dropped out of the Australian Open qualifying to play in Delray Beach, got his second win in the past three months over John Isner, beating the No. 2 seed 6-3, 4-6, 6-3. Harrison will play No. 4 seed Hubert Hurkacz of Poland Tuesday afternoon, after Hurkacz defeated former USC star Roberto Quiroz of Ecuador, playing in his first ATP quarterfinal. Korda will take on the winner of tonight's match between Cam Norrie(TCU) of Great Britain and No. 8 seed Frances Tiafoe.

At the WTA 500 in Abu Dhabi, top seed Sofia Kenin lost to No. 9 seed Maria Sakkari of Greece 2-6, 6-2, 6-0, dropping the final ten games of the match.  Eighteen-year-old Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine, the 2017 Australian Open girls champion, has reached her first WTA semifinal, and will play unseeded Veronica Kudermetova of Russia Tuesday.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm new here. I must apologize for posting something unrelated to this article, but is the USTA Boys website down? I cannot get into it with my laptop or phone, and I know this sounds like I'm creeping (and I kind of am), but is it down for you too?

Colette Lewis said...

Yes, the ustaboys.com website has been down for over a month. Tournament director is aware of it.

Bad Day at the Office said...

In the Aussie Open Qualifier...The USA Men have only 2 players advancing into the final round. The USA Women didn't do much better... only 2 Players advancing to the final round. Terrible outing for the Americans.

SeminoleG said...

@Bad Day - Yea I was very disappointed that USA kids didn't fair to well. BUT if you look at the schedule USA Players had vice the rest of the world, gotta say it was expected. So consider what this is going to do to the USA Jrs when the ITF schedule starts back up.

USTA revamped Player Development while COVID has decimated all levels of participation. This is going to be a very DEEP BLOW to USA Tennis and unless the Powers in the USA do something it will only get worse.

I applaud UTR for trying BUT the events fall well short of developing Top Jrs.

2021-2022 will be very difficult year for USA Jrs, and young Pro's. Sad