Stojsavljevic Ousts Top Seed Jones; Four US Girls Advance to US Open Junior Quarterfinals; No. 2 Seed Bigun Defeats Forbes, Faces Jodar Thursday; Pegula Joins Navarro in Women's Semifinals

©Colette Lewis 2024--
Flushing Meadows NY--

The boys quarterfinals Thursday at the US Open Junior Championships will feature all three of the previous junior slam champions, but the girls quarterfinals will be missing two-time slam finalist and No. 1 seed Emerson Jones of Australia, thanks to the efforts of unseeded 15-year-old Mika Stojsavljevic of Great Britain.

Stojsavljevic beat Jones at last year's Wimbledon Junior Championships, en route to her only other junior slam quarterfinal, and while her results on the ITF junior circuit had not been especially noteworthy this year, she won a ITF women's World Tennis Tour tournament in Nottingham this spring to bolster her confidence.

"It definitely showed me that my level is there," said Stojsavljevic, who is six feet tall. "I've got quite a big game, so we're still working on getting that consistency, but I definitely felt it gave me a big confidence boost."

Against Jones, Stojsavljevic had 13 aces among her 39 winners, while Jones, who admitted she was not in her best form in her first two victories, had only 7 winners while making 20 unforced errors.

"With my game, I think I can be dangerous on any court," said Stojsavljevic, who is coached by David Brewer at the Loughborough National Academy. "It's just a matter of dealing with myself, but I love these courts. I know when I play my tennis, I can be a tough player to beat. But I'm still growing into my body, I haven't peaked yet at all."

Although she won't be 16 until December, Stojsavljevic will face a younger opponent for a place in the semifinals, with wild card Annika Penickova earning an upset of her own on another cloudless day at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

Penickova, who will be 15 next week, avenged her second round Wimbledon loss to Jeline Vandromme of Belgium, coming from a set and 4-1 down to beat the No. 5 seed 6-7(7), 6-4, 6-3.

Penickova admitted the disappointment of dropping that first set might have carried over into the start of the second, but the 4-1 deficit also took the pressure off.

"I started playing more free, I told myself I have nothing to lose," said the left-hander, who will be playing in her first junior slam quarterfinal Thursday. "I was playing really well in the first set, put all my energy in it, so starting the second I was a little more down, wasn't moving that well, didn't have the energy. But I was like, it's ok, just go for it, and after one or two games, I was like, you know what, I think I can do this, and at 4-all, I was like ok, let's do this. I was locked in."

Penickova knew, from the Wimbledon loss, that she would need to play well to beat Vandromme, and was motivated to do so.

"Playing a good player like that, it always adds to it," said Penickova, a Californian who trains at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, along with twin sister Kristina. "I want to play well, I have to play well."

Penickova broke to open the third set, but was down 0-40 serving at 3-2, before coming back to hold.

"I was winning most of the longer rallies so I just wanted to get the point started and keep moving her," Penickova said. "At 4-2, I didn't want to think I've got this, so just the entire third set I was just like, one more game, this point, in the moment."

After Vandromme's error serving at 3-5, 30-40, Penickova reacted as if she couldn't believe that there were no more moments to face, but after letting it sink in, she couldn't be more excited to reach the quarterfinals.

"It feels so nice, it's absolutely incredible," Penickova said. "And to have my first quarterfinal be here at the Open, it's a literal dream for me. I told my dad, this is my time, this my tournament, I love this place and it feels incredible to be the youngest one in the quarters, but I definitely don't want it to end here."

The rematch of last month's USTA National 18s final is set for Thursday, with No. 3 seed Iva Jovic facing unseeded wild card Valerie Glozman for the third time this year.

Glozman defeated Jovic in the semifinals of the ITF J300 in Indian Wells 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, but Jovic took the gold ball and the US Open women's wild card with a 7-6(6), 6-3 victory in San Diego.

Both breezed through their third round matches, with Jovic defeating No. 14 seed Sonja Zhiyenbayeva of Kazakhstan 6-1, 6-2 on Louis Armstrong Stadium, while Glozman took out unseeded Tereza Krejcova of the Czech Republic 6-0, 6-3.

The fourth US girl to advance to the quarterfinals is No. 2 seed Tyra Grant, who avenged her Wimbledon loss to No. 15 seed Vendula Valdmannova of the Czech Republic 6-2, 6-4.  Grant's opponent is No. 8 seed Mingge Xu of Great Britain, who beat No. 10 seed Rositsa Dencheva of Bulgaria 6-2, 6-1.

No. 7 seed Wakana Sonobe of Japan defeated the fifth US girl in the third round, taking out Kristina Penickova 7-5, 6-4. Sonobe's opponent in the quarterfinals is No. 4 seed Teodora Kostovic of Serbia, last month's ITF J300 College Park champion, who defeated Eliska Tichackova of the Czech Republic 3-6, 7-5, 6-2.

The top three seeds in the boys draw, junior slam champions all, advanced closer to a rare second title with straight set wins.

Top seed and Wimbledon champion Nicolai Budkov Kjaer of Norway, who had struggled in his opening two matches, got his second win in two months over unseeded Naoya Honda of Japan 6-3, 6-3. He will play No. 5 seed Luca Preda of Romania, who defeated unseeded Thomas Faurel 6-0, 7-5.

Roland Garros champion Kaylan Bigun faced off against Kalamazoo 18s champion Matthew Forbes, a wild card, and came away with a 6-2, 6-4 victory. 

Bigun had hit on Ashe last week, but he had never been on the Louis Armstrong court until warming up there this morning.

"It was definitely a cool experience," said the 18-year-old left-hander. "It was great, I liked it a lot. The shade was a bit tricky at times, but I definitely like it."

Bigun recognized that Forbes has had a stretch of tennis similar to his own when he won the boys title at the French Open, taking the Kalamazoo 18s title, playing a competitive match in the first round of the US Open men's singles and winning two rounds in the juniors this week.

"Obviously he's had a heck of a last few weeks," said Bigun, who is planning to begin his collegiate career at UCLA in January. "So I knew he was going to come out playing well, serving well. But at the same time, I practiced with him, and I played him before, so I knew his patterns a little bit. I tried to take time away from him, put pressure on the return and I felt like I did a pretty good job of that."

Bigun, who received a men's qualifying wild card, and played mixed doubles with Iva Jovic, winning a round, said he feels like a New York resident having been competing at, or preparing to compete at the Open for the past two and a half weeks and that is primarily the reason he did not sign up for doubles.

Bigun will play No. 12 seed Rafael Jodar of Spain, again on Armstrong, after College Park ITF J300 champion Jodar defeated wild card Dominick Mosejczuk 6-2, 6-1 for his eighth straight victory on this ITF Junior Circuit hard court swing.

"We practiced together at Roland Garros, I know he's a good player and am looking forward to it," Bigun said. "He's won a good amount of matches in a row, but I'd love to play him. I'm good to go."

Bigun has been following the results of the US men here, and was aware of the drought that either Taylor Fritz or Frances Tiafoe will break on Sunday. 

"That's so good for men's American tennis, USTA, Player Development," Bigun said. "That we're able to guarantee at least one American(in a men's slam final). It's been 15 years since that happened, I think it was 2009, when Roddick lost to Federer. It's definitely cool, and I'll definitely watch the match."

The third 2024 boys slam champion to advance to the quarterfinals is Australian Open winner Rei Sakamoto of Japan, the No. 3 seed, who defeated Timofei Derepasko of Russia 6-4, 6-4. He will play University of South Carolina freshman Atakan Karahan of Turkey, who took out No. 8 seed Theo Papamalamis of France 6-4, 7-6(11).

Wimbledon finalist Mees Rottgering of the Netherlands, seeded No. 4 was an upset victim, falling to qualifier Flynn Thomas of Switzerland 4-6, 6-4, 6-0.

Thomas said he wasn't discouraged when he dropped the first set.

"After the first set, I just concentrated on the second set and I knew that I had a lot of chances, that I could win," said the 16-year-old. "I just played really well, and everything worked for me."

Rottgering contributed to his own demise, with 55 unforced errors, and while Thomas had only 10 winners, he knows his game and how he wins matches.

"I'm very solid, so I don't do easy mistakes," Thomas said. "I give no no presents. We played good rallies all the time and I was just better in the rally. I just fight for every point, that's all."

Thomas will play unseeded Charlie Robertson of Great Britain, who defeated No. 11 seed Jangjun Kim of Korea 6-3, 6-4. Robertson now has beaten Kim in the first round of Roland Garros, the second round of Wimbledon and the third round of the US Open this summer.

For all the US girls' success in singles, only one doubles team has advanced to the quarterfinals: Christasha McNeil and Capucine Jauffret.

Three Americans remain in the boys doubles quarterfinals. The wild card team of Nikita Filin and Matisse Farzam defeated No. 5 seeds Papamalamis and Petr Brunclik of the Czech Republic 7-5, 6-2 to advance, while Wimbledon and College Park champions Alex Razeghi and Max Schoenhaus extended their winning streak with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Ian Mayew and Kase Schinnerer.

Play begins at noon Thursday, and admission to the grounds is free.

Jessica Pegula[6] reached her first slam semifinal, joining Taylor Fritz and Emma Navarro in that milestone, by defeating WTA No. 1 Iga Swiatek of Poland 6-2, 6-4 in tonight's quarterfinal. She will face unseeded Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic in Thursday night's second semifinal; Navarro and No. 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka will play the 7 p.m. match on Ashe.

The USTA sent a release announcing this is the first slam to "feature two American men's and women's singles semifinalists since the 2003 US Open (Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick; Lindsay Davenport and Jennifer Capriati)."

The wild card team of Taylor Townsend and Donald Young will play for the mixed doubles title against No. 3 seed Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori at 3 p.m.

After the two junior quarterfinal matches on Armstrong, the men's doubles semifinals will follow. In keeping with the theme of this year's US Open, Jackson Withrow(Texas A&M) and Nathaniel Lammons(SMU) will play in their first major semifinal, with the No. 13 seeds facing No. 7 seeds Jordan Thompson and Max Purcell of Australia.

The second semifinal features two former collegians, with No. 4 seeds Marcel Arevalo(Tulsa) of El Salvador and Mate Pavic of Croatia taking on No. 10 seeds Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz(Auburn) of Germany.