Eddie Herr 12s, 14s, 16s Recap; Four US Girls Advance to Orange Bowl Quarterfinals; Wild Card Kang Defeats No. 3 Seed to Reach All-US Quarterfinal; 16s Singles Semifinals, Doubles Finals Set for Friday

©Colette Lewis 2022-
Plantation FL--

As the Orange Bowl heads into the weekend, with the first finals in 16s doubles Friday, here's my look back at the Eddie Herr 12s, 14s, and 16s Championships last week at the IMG Academy, with singles titles won by Michael Antonius and Maxwell Exsted. My recap of the ITF J1 in Bradenton will be available tomorrow.

Only one of the four singles champions in the Eddie Herr 16s and ITF divisions remain alive for the double at the Orange Bowl, with ITF boys champion Arthur Gea of France losing to Rei Sakamoto of Japan 7-5, 6-1 today, and 16s girls champion and top seed this week Hyunyee Lee of Korea beaten by No. 10 seed Tianmei Wang 1-66-4, 6-3. Boys 16s champion Exsted lost in the second round Tuesday. 

That leaves unseeded Mayu Crossley, the Eddie Herr ITF girls champion, as the sole survivor. The 16-year-old from Japan trailed wild card Alanis Hamilton 5-2 in the opening set, but rebounded for a 7-6(2), 6-0 victory. It sets up a rematch of the Eddie Herr quarterfinal against Rositsa Dencheva of Bulgaria, which Crossley won 4-6, 6-0, 6-2.

The other quarterfinal in the top half will be between two unseeded 16-year-old Americans: Anya Murthy and Maya Joint. Joint defeated No. 8 seed Kaitlin Quevedo, who had captured the J1 in Guadalajara three weeks ago and had collected three ITF women's $15,000 titles since September, 6-3, 6-4.

"I knew it was going to be a nice match," said Joint, who has verbally committed to the University of Texas for 2024. "I knew she'd be very good on clay, coming from those tournaments, and she plays a lot in South America and Europe, so I knew she knew what she was doing on clay. She mixed it up a lot, hit a lot of slices, heavy balls, hit a lot of angles, but I thought I handled it pretty well."

Although Joint plays a lot of indoor tennis this time of year in Grosse Pointe Michigan, she isn't without experience on the surface. 

"My mom's German, so we go over to Germany every summer," Joint said. "We try to go twice a year, and I like playing on the red clay there, so that helps me."

Although Joint reached the quarterfinals of the 16s Orange Bowl in 2020, she didn't have much success in the Junior Orange Bowl before that, and lost early last year.

"Orange Bowl never really was my tournament," Joint said. "Last year I lost first round in the 16s. It was never really my favorite. But every year I tell myself this is it, this my year, and so far, it's going pretty well."

Murthy also comes from an area of the country that features little clay, but unlike Joint, the Fremont California resident played the Grade A in Mexico two weeks ago and the Eddie Herr last week. In today's third round she ended the run of qualifier Lya Fernandez of Mexico 4-6, 6-2, 6-4.

"I have a bit of an ab injury, so that was kind of difficult, so I just told myself to just get my serve in, because that was the only one I was having problems with," said Murthy, has trained with Nick Fustar at the Eagle Fustar Academy for many years. "I had to make a lot of balls, because she was going to break down. I knew her forehand was weaker going into the match, because I'd played her before, she doesn't do as much damage with it, so I played to her forehand and attacked her backhand, because she goes for a little too much on her backhand sometimes."

Murthy and Joint haven't played for a long time, but Murthy knows what to expect from their first ITF Junior Circuit meeting.

"She's a really aggressive player, she goes for her shots," Murthy said. "She hits the ball really hard and she moves really well. She kind of plays like the girl I played just now."

Two more Americans will play international opponents in the bottom half quarterfinals: Iva Jovic, who celebrated her 15th birthday this week, takes on Ela Milic of Slovenia and Clervie Ngounoue, the only seed remaining, faces 14-year-old Wakana Sonobe of Japan.

Jovic, playing in just her second Grade A tournament this week, defeated Alexis Harmon 6-4, 6-3, while Milic saved three match points in a 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(6) win over 2020 Orange Bowl 16s champion Valeria Ray that clocked in at three hours and 14 minutes. Ray's first two match points came with Milic serving at 3-5, but Ray then proceeded to lose 12 consecutive points before saving three match points serving at 5-6. Ray then went up 5-0 in the tiebreaker, with Milic making one unforced error after another, but Milic, who had saved two match points in her second round win over wild card Akasha Urhobo yesterday, won the next five points, eliminating her errors entirely. Ray had another match point with Milic serving at 5-6, but she netted a forehand, then failed to catch the line with a backhand to make it 7-6. Milic then converted her fourth match point with a sizzling backhand winner that Ray had no chance to return.

Ngounoue, the No. 5 seed and the winner of the Merida Mexico Grade A  two weeks ago, defeated Rebecca Munk Mortensen of Denmark 6-1, 6-3. Sonobe advanced via a walkover, with No. 2 seed Tereza Valentova of the Czech Republic withdrawing prior to the match.

In contrast to the girls, only two unseeded boys remain in contention for an Orange Bowl title, with wild card Kyle Kang earning his place in the quarterfinals with a 7-5, 6-3 win over No. 3 seed Yaroslav Demin of Russia.

"I was confident on my shots, and my main focus was just to try to keep my energy high no matter what was going on," said the 17-year-old from Fullerton California, currently 103 in the ITF junior rankings. "I know if I can keep my level in a certain area, I'll be able to take care of a lot of these guys, and that's kind of what I did today. Nothing special, but just solid throughout."

Kang, a quarterfinalist at the US Open juniors this year, said he requested a wild card for a variety of reasons.

"I think it's a good tournament to win in general," said Kang, who lost in the first round last year. "There's a lot of good players and it's an opportunity to get some matches before the year ends. There's nothing after this, so going into the preseason with some wins would be nice as well."

Kang did not play any of the three events leading up to the Orange Bowl, and spent just a few days in Orlando on a surface he doesn't see much of in Southern California. 

"The first few matches were a little of getting used to the surface, but the deeper I go, the more practice I'm getting," said Kang, who is planning to compete at the Australian Open Junior Championships in January. "I just want to see where my level's at, and I think if I play well, I should hopefully be able to win it. That's the goal."

Kang's opponent in the quarterfinals is No. 6 seed Cooper Williams, who has competed in all four of the season-ending ITF Junior Circuit majors in North America the past four weeks. Williams defeated No. 12 seed Alejandro Melero Kretzer of Spain 6-4, 6-0. Kang defeated Williams 6-4, 6-1 in the first round of the Kalamazoo 18s in 2021, five months after Williams had beaten Kang in three sets in the first round of the J1 in San Diego. 

Top seed Gerard Campana Lee of Korea defeated Preston Stearns 6-2 ,6-3 and will play No. 11 seed Hayden Jones of Australia in the quarterfinals. No. 2 seed Rodrigo Pacheco Mendez of Mexico faces No. 8 seed Sakamoto and No. 7 seed Iliyan Radulov of Bulgaria takes on unseeded Jan Hrazdil of the Czech Republic.

The 18s doubles semifinals are set for Friday afternoon, with top seeds Campana Lee and France's Paul Inchauspe playing unseeded Charlie Camus of Australia and Ilyas Fahim in the top half and No. 4 seeds Adriano Dzhenev and Radulov of Bulgaria playing unseeded Americans Alex Frusina and Marko Mesarovic.

The sole seeded team in the girls doubles semifinals is No. 3 Ranah Stoiber and Mingge Xu of Great Britain, who will play Murthy and Poland's Malwina Rowinska.  Sage Loudon and Katie Rolls will face Jovic and Tyra Grant in the top half semifinal.

The semifinals in the 16s are set, with all four girls semifinalists and two of the four boys from the United States.

Wang's win over top seed Lee sets her up for another contest against No. 13 seed Alexis Nguyen, whom she has beaten twice this year. Nguyen advanced with a 6-4, 6-0 win over No. 5 seed Katerina Shabashkevich.  

Two unseeded players will play for a place in the final in the bottom half, with Claire Hill defeating No. 6 seed Maren Urata 7-6(1), 6-3 and wild card Monika Ekstrand beating unseeded Harper Stone 6-1, 6-2.

Wild card Matthew Forbes is the only unseeded boy in the 16s semifinals. The 16-year-old from North Carolina defeated No. 3 seed Bernardo Munk Mesa of Spain 6-2, 6-2 and will play No. 7 seed Miguel Tobon of Colombia, who beat No. 16 seed Jagger Leach 6-3, 6-2. In the bottom half semifinal, No. 13 seed Prathinav Chunduru will play No. 5 seed Naoya Honda of Japan. Chunduru, a 16-year-old from Texas, defeated unseeded Andrew Ena 6-4, 6-3, while Honda eliminated qualifier Enzo Kohlmann de Freitas of Brazil 6-2, 4-6, 6-4.

The first trophies of the 2022 Orange Bowl will be handed out Friday, with the 16s doubles titles on the line.

Unseeded Kenzie Nguyen and Claire Zhang will play No. 7 seeds Georgia Cranford and Germany's Amelie Hejtmanek for the girls championship.

Unseeded Dylan Long and Nicholas Patrick will play No. 2 seeds Jacob Olar and Honda for the boys 16s doubles title.

Live streaming will be available on courts 1, 2, 4 and 5, with Friday's order of play here.  Live scoring is available here.