Czech Republic Top Seeds as Junior Davis and Billie Jean King Cup Competitions Begin Tuesday in Turkey; Conway Wins First ITF Junior Circuit Title in Nicaragua; Corpus Christi J4 Underway

Japan and USA won the JDC and JFC competitions last time they were held, in 2019

The ITF's Junior Davis Cup and Junior Billie Jean King Cup 16 and under competitions were scheduled to take place last year and this year at the USTA's National Campus in Lake Nona as part as a three-year agreement. The first year, 2019, it did happen, with the US girls and the Japanese boys taking the titles, but the pandemic canceled the events last year and this year the USTA opted against participating as either host or competitor.

The ITF moved the competition to Antalya Turkey, keeping its normal place on the calendar, and it begins on Tuesday, with the Czech Republic named the top seeds in both the girls and boys competitions.

The round robin groups and seeds are as follows:

Junior Billie Jean King Cup
Group A
Czech Republic[1]
Argentina[5]
Egypt
Peru

Group B
Canada[3]
Hungary[6]
Turkey
Germany

Group C
Romania[4]
Japan[7]
Chile
Morocco

Group D
Russia[2]
Thailand[8]
Hong Kong
Mexico

Junior Davis Cup

Group A

Czech Republic[1]

Japan[6]

Chile

Turkey

Group B

Mexico[3]

Bulgaria[7]

Tunisia

Russia

Group C

Germany[4]

Brazil[5]

Argentina 

Korea

Group D

France[2]

Hong Kong[8]

Canada

Egypt

The ITF preview says the top-seeded Czech teams are "highly fancied," which is probably underselling how favored they are. 

The girls team has two girls in the ITF Junior rankings Top 30: Brenda Fruhvirtova at 24 and Nikola Bartunkova at 28, with their third player, Sara Bejlek, at 63 in the juniors, 379 in the WTA rankings after winning a $60K in July and making two $60K quarterfinals since then. Fruhvirtova is 14 years old, with Bartunkova and Bejlek 15; all three could play in the competition again next year.

The boys team features No. 37 Jakub Mensik and No. 61 Vojtech Petr, both of whom are 16.

I won't be covering the competition quite as closely as I do when the US teams are involved, but you can follow the results here. Turkey is seven hours ahead of Eastern time in the United States.

I covered last week's J5 in McKinney Texas on Friday and the J1 in Belgium Saturday, but there was another ITF Junior Circuit tournament of note for Americans last week at the J5 in Nicaragua. Fourteen-year-old Haylee Conway won her first Junior Circuit title, with the No. 4 seed defeating unseeded Nina Costalas 7-6(4), 6-0 in the all-American final.  Conway defeated last week's Nicaragua J5 champion Aida Oviedo in the semifinals.

Oviedo and Linda Ziets Segura took the doubles title, with the top-seeded Americans defeating unseeded Polina Krumkachev and Zimbabwe's Nicole Matukutire 6-3, 0-6, 10-8 in the final.

This week's ITF Junior Circuit in the United States moves to Corpus Christi Texas, with 64-players draws for both the girls and boys at the J4 tournament. 

Results from today's first round matches have yet to be posted. The top two boys seeds are Joseph Phillips and Alexander Razeghi. The top two girls seeds are Nevena Carton and Elisabeth Jones.