ITF Announces Return of Junior Masters This Fall; North/Central American ITF Junior Team Qualifying Begins Thursday in Lake Nona; Videos of Easter Bowl 12s and 14s Finals

After a three-year hiatus, the ITF announced that its Junior Masters competition will return this fall, and will be held again in Chengdu China. The tournament began in 2015 and was last played in 2019.

The top eight juniors in the ITF juniors rankings as of September 11, two days after the conclusion of the US Open Junior Championships, will receive invitations to compete in the event, although a Chinese player in the Top 25 would bump out No. 8. Currently Yi Zhou of China is No. 6 in the ITF rankings, but there is no girl from China in the Top 100 right now, let alone Top 25.

In the past, not every player eligible has accepted the invitation, but there are financial incentives, with the minimum travel grant payout of $8,500 for eighth place, up to $17,000 for the champions. The tournament is a 750, which is midway between the 500 points awarded the winner of what were previously known as Grade As, and the junior slams, which are worth 1000 points to the champion.

The tournament is scheduled to take place October 16-22. 

The ITF release is available here.

As I mentioned in my post last week, the regional qualifying for the North/Central America and Caribbean ITF junior team tournaments takes place beginning tomorrow at the USTA National Campus in Lake Nona. 

There has been one change in the four US teams, which are listed in my post last Wednesday. In the girls 14U World Junior Tennis competition, Easter Bowl champion Nancy Lee is replacing Harper Stone.  

The United States is among four teams competing in the three-day event, with the top two teams advancing to the Finals this summer or fall. Canada and Mexico join the US in competing in all four events; Guatemala and Puerto Rico are the other two participants. The players, the draws and the results of each day's matches can be found at the ITF tournament site.

I'm working my way through the Easter Bowl video processing, with the 12s and 14s now complete. As all four matches were played at once, some videos are unavoidably more complete than others. The entire Girls 12s final, with commentary by Ken Thomas, is available on demand on YouTube here, starting at the 3:00 mark.