Quevedo, Pursoo Win ITF J3 Titles; European Championships Underway with Some Surprise Competitors; ITF World Junior Tennis U14 Team Participants Named, USA to Compete in Boys and Girls Events
Last week's ITF Grade 3 in the Dominican Republic concluded with four American champions, with US girls sweeping the singles and doubles titles.
Top seed Ariana Pursoo defeated No. 3 seed Maya Iyengar 6-4, 6-0 for her second ITF Junior Circuit title, both coming at J3s this year. The 16-year-old from New York has now improved her ITF junior ranking to a career-high of 125.
Top seed Preston Stearns lost in the final of boys singles, to No. 2 seed Yi Zhou of China, 6-2, 6-1.
The unseeded team of Brooklyn Olson and Anya Murthy won the girls doubles title, beating No. 4 seeds Hannah Chambers of Barbados and Xintong Zhou of China 4-6, 6-4, 10-7. It's the fourth Junior Circuit doubles title for Murthy and the fifth for Olson, but the first the 16-year-olds have won together.
Zhou and Tyler Nguyen won the boys doubles title, with the No. 4 seeds beating top seeds Stearns and Dylan Charlap 6-3, 6-4.
Kaitlin Quevedo, who qualified at Wimbledon, went from the grass of England to the clay of Colombia last week, where she won the Grade 3 in Medellin. The 16-year-old Quevedo, seeded No. 1, defeated No. 4 seed Valeria Ray 6-7(1), 6-0, 6-4 for her fourth ITF Junior Circuit singles title.
She and Ray partnered for the girls doubles title, with the top seeds beating No. 2 seeds Tania Andrade Sabando of Ecuador and Lourdes Ayala of Argentina 6-3, 6-2 in the final.
Kurt Miller won the boys doubles title, with Camilo Cano Gomez of Colombia. The No. 2 seeds defeated top seeds Felipe Pinzon Moreno and Chile's Nicholas Villalon Valdes 6-1, 3-6, 10-4 in the final. It's Miller's fourth ITF Junior Circuit doubles title.
At the J5 last week in Belgium, 17-year-old Amar Tahirovic won his first ITF Junior Circuit title, capturing the boys doubles title with Germany's Aaron Funk. The No. 2 seeds defeated the unseeded Luxembourg team of Noe Plique and Matiej Reiter 6-2, 6-4 in the final.
The European Championships are underway this week, with the ITF JB1 as usual in Klosters Switzerland. The boys and girls 16s, for many years held in Moscow, is now in Prerov in the Czech Republic, and no Russian or Belarusian players are in any of the draws. The boys and girls 14s are in Most in the Czech Republic, their regular location.
Jakub Mensik of the Czech Republic is the top seed in Klosters, with Wimbledon boys champion Mili Poljicak not competing.
Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva of Andorra is the top girls seed in the JB1, with the WTA 154 returning to junior competition for only the second time this year, having played the Junior Championships at Roland Garros, where she lost in the second round.
In the 16s, the top seeds are among the best in the ITF junior rankings. Tereza Valentova of the Czech Republic, the European 14s champion last year, is currently No. 24 in the ITF junior rankings.
Martin Landaluce of Spain, currently No. 10 in the ITF junior rankings, is the top seed in the boys 16s. Both Valentova and Landaluce play their first round matches Tuesday.
The top seed in the boys 14s is Ivan Ivanov of Bulgaria, who was the No. 1 seed at the recent Wimbledon U14 event, where he lost in the semifinals to eventual champion Se Hyuk Cho of Korea. Alena Kovackova of the Czech Republic, who reached the final of an ITF J3 earlier this month, is the top seed in the girls 14s.
Live scoring for the ITF JB1 is available via the TennisTicker app.
I can't remember getting this information this early in previous years, but today, the ITF released the names of the competitors for next month's World Junior Tennis team event in Prostejov Czech Republic.
The 16 boys teams competing:
ArgentinaBulgaria
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