Rain-Delayed Junior Orange Bowl Quarterfinals Conclude with Boys Top Seeds Eliminated; Jovic and Lam Advance to G14s Semifinals; Draxl Claims Second Straight $15K in Cancun

©Colette Lewis 2021--

Coral Gables, FL--

Rain this morning delayed the quarterfinal matches at the Junior Orange Bowl for three or four hours, and when all were decided late this afternoon, the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds in both the boys 12s and the boys 14s had been sidelined.

At the boys 14s at Crandon Park, No. 6 seed Calvin Baierl defeated top seed and Eddie Herr finalist Maxwell Exsted 6-1, 6-2, while unseeded Valentin Garay of Argentina took out Eddie Herr champion Timofey Derapasko of Russia 6-2, 7-6(4). No. 3 seed Darwin Blanch beat Maximus Dussault[8] 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 in the other all-USA boys 14s quarterfinal. 

B14s Quarterfinal results:

Calvin Baierl[6](USA) d. Maxwell Exsted[1](USA) 6-1, 6-2 

Alejandro Arcila[5](COL)d. Thijs Boogaard[9](NED) 6-4, 2- ret. ill Darwin Blanch[3](USA) d. Maximus Dussault[8](USA) 6-3, 4-6, 6-4

Valentin Garay(ARG) d. Timofey Derepasko[2](RUS) 6-2, 7-6(4)

The boys 12s at Salvadore Park lost Eddie Herr champion and top seed Teodor Davidov, who fell to Juan Miguel Bolivar of Colombia, a No. 9 seed, 6-3, 6-4. No. 2 seed Navneet Raghuram lost to Jordan Lee, the No. 5 seed, for the second time in three weeks. The Americans met in the semifinals of the Eddie Herr, with Lee winning that 6-4, 4-6, 10-2. Today, playing a full third set, Lee posted a 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 victory. No. 8 seed Jerrid Gaines, who lives in the Miami area, cruised into the semifinals with a 6-1, 6-1 win over Felipe Mamede, a 17 seed from Brazil.

B12s Quarterfinal results:

Juan Miguel Bolivar[9](COL) d. Teodor Davidov[1](USA) 6-3, 6-4

Jerrid Gaines[8](USA) d. Felipe Mamede[17](BRA) 6-1, 6-1 

Svit Suljic[3](SLO) d. Mark Ceban[9](GBR) 6-2, 6-2 

Jordan Lee[5](USA) d. Navneet Raghuram[2](USA) 6-3, 3-6, 6-1

Iva Jovic, the No. 1 seed in the girls 14s, had some unfinished business in her final year at the Junior Orange Bowl, having traveled all the way from her Southern California home to accomplish what she couldn't do in her first attempt: win a match.

"I played it two years ago and lost in qualifying," said the 14-year-old from Torrance, who won the Easter Bowl this spring. "So I kind of wanted to redeem myself."

After that first round qualifying loss, she did get to visit the Everglades, but this year, she might not have any time to be a tourist, as she has reached the semifinals, defeating rival Claire An 6-2, 6-3 Sunday afternoon.

Jovic and An were tied at 3-all in the second set when Nina Costalas, who was playing Emma Dong of Canada on the adjacent court, went well wide of her own court chasing a ball and collapsed behind the Jovic-An baseline, the racquet flying out of her hand. She received treatment for her hamstring, and after an evaluation, eventually left the court under her own power, but Jovic and An could not resume their match until approximately ten minutes had elapsed.

"She was starting to play a little better, and that kind of maybe cooled her down a little bit and gave me more of an advantage," said Jovic, who won the final three games after the disruption.  "It was tough to stay concentrated because we had a good rhythm going with the points, and I was winning, but I just made sure I wasn't sitting too long on the bench, kept moving my feet so I wouldn't get cold."

The other American in the semifinals is No. 4 seed Shannon Lam, who took 4-1 leads in both sets against No. 7 seed Katie Rolls, but needed to bear down serving out both sets at 5-4. Lam saved a break point in the first set at 5-4, while she needed two match points to get the job done in the second set, with Rolls, determined to stay aggressive regardless of the score, sending a swing volley long on match point No. 2.

"She can run," the 13-year-old Lam said of Rolls, who had beaten her at the ITF J4 in Atlanta in October. "We had so many rallies. I made some drop shots that I thought were really good, but she just manages to hit winners off them. But I was glad to play her, to try to get this one."

Like Jovic, Lam didn't have any results to brag about in the 12s two years ago. She did qualify, but lost in the first round, and for all the lost tournament opportunities due to the pandemic, it did have a silver lining for her.

"My school shut down so I actually had more time to practice," said Lam, who will be representing the United States at Les Petits As next month. "So that's been a big part of my improvement. And a lot of my coach's students weren't there because of Covid, so he had more time to hit with me. I'm definitely more aggressive now; when I was younger I was just a baseline player."

Lam will face the only Eddie Herr champion still in the running for the Florida double, No. 2 seed Rositsa Dencheva of Bulgaria, who defeated No. 6 seed Hannah Klugman of Great Britain 6-3, 6-4.

G14s Quarterfinals:

Eva Jovic[1](USA) d. Claire An[5](USA) 6-2, 6-3

Emma Dong[9](CAN) d. Nina Costalas[17](USA) 4-4, ret. inj.

Shannon Lam[4](USA) d. Katie Rolls[7](USA) 6-4, 6-4 

Rositsa Dencheva[2](BUL) d. Hannah Klugman[6](GBR) 6-3, 6-4 

The girls 12s semifinals will feature three Americans, with No. 3 Lia Belibova of Moldova the only international player remaining. 

G12s Quarterfinal:

Christina Lyutova[1](USA) d. Ye Sung Choo(KOR)  6-1, 7-5

Zaire Clarke[8](USA) d. Anita Tu[4](USA) 6-2, 7-6(3) 

Lia Belibova[3](MDA) d. Julieta Pareja[6](USA) 6-2, 5-7, 6-4

Nancy Lee[9](USA) d. Yui Komada[17](JPN)  6-2, 4-6, 6-1

The girls 12s and the boys 14s move to the Biltmore Tennis Center for Monday's semifinals, joining the girls 14s. The boys 12s, which is played on Har-Tru, remain at Salvadore Park throughout the tournament. 

Harvey Fialkov has been writing feature articles for the Junior Orange Bowl throughout the tournament. His work can be found here.

Live streaming of the semifinal matches that are on courts 1 and 2 will be available Monday courtesy of Tennis Analytics. I'll try to tweet which matches will be streamed; all six semifinals are scheduled for 9:30 a.m., with rain again in the forecast for the afternoon.

I haven't been able to keep tabs on the ITF World Tennis Tour as much as usual these past three weeks, but I wanted to note that University of Kentucky junior Liam Draxl won his second consecutive $15,000 tournament in Cancun today. The 20-year-old Canadian, seeded No. 6, defeated unseeded Isiah Strode 6-1, 6-0 in just over an hour in the final. In the ten matches Draxl has won these past two weeks, he has played eight tiebreakers and won seven of them.