Pareja Reaches Wimbledon Junior Finals in Singles and Doubles; Qualifier Karki's Improbable Run Continues; Leach and Penickova Advance to Doubles Championships; Semifinals in U14s Set for Saturday; Fritz Falls to Alcaraz

©Colette Lewis 2025--

Wimbledon--

A scorching day at the All England Lawn Tennis Club ended Friday evening with Julieta Pareja set to contend for two Wimbledon Junior Championships, while qualifier Ronit Karki mounted a third straight comeback to advance to Sunday's boys singles championship.

The sixth-seeded Pareja had sailed through her first four matches, losing no more than four games in any set, and another routine win was developing when she took the first set of her semifinal with Great Britain's unseeded Mimi Xu 6-2. But Xu, who has spent the last six weeks competing on grass in her home country, revved up her serving, taking advantage of a slight wobble by Pareja. 

Serving for the match at 5-3, Pareja was broken at 15, with her only match point coming in the subsequent tiebreaker, which Xu saved with one of her 17 aces. Xu took the 70-minute set 7-6(9), yet Pareja refused to let that rattle her.

"I had a chance to serve it out, but she played a good game there," said the 16-year-old from Carlsbad California. "I made two mistakes but it wasn't easy mistakes either. I tried to just keep being focused, not get annoyed or frustrated, which I think really helped me in the third."

Pareja was philosophical about being aced on match point.

"There's nothing you can do," said Roehampton champion Pareja, who is now 11-0 in singles and 8-1 in doubles in her first two grass events. "She has a really good serve, she aced me on match point, you can't do anything about it, so next point."

Pareja broke Xu to take a 3-2 lead in the third set, and this time served it out, although another match point came and went before Xu netted a backhand to give Pareja a 6-2, 6-7(9), 6-4, two-hour and 32-minute win on Court 12.

Pareja's opponent in Saturday's final is unseeded Mia Pohankova of Slovakia, who needed barely half the time it took Pareja to advance, beating 2024 semifinalist Vendula Valdmannova of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-0 in an hour and 17 minutes.

Pohankova, who will be 17 in October, had her patience tested when Valdmannova left the court for treatment before serving down 6-4, 5-0. While Valdmannova was gone, Pohankova didn't seek shade or sit down, instead spending the approximately 10- minute delay pacing behind the baseline on Court 18, shadow swinging and moving from one part of the court to another, while trying to keep her mind on the task at hand.

"She told me something really hurt in here," Pohankova said, pointing to her upper abdomen. "It's too tough, because it's 5-0 and everything's in my mind. I just say, focus, focus, stay in the game and I did it."

When Valdmannova finally returned, she went down 0-40, but wasn't quite ready to leave the court. She saved the first match point with a drop shot winner--not easy to do against Pohankova--then blasted a forehand winner to save the second. But that was her last gasp, with a double fault putting Pohankova into her first slam final, after reaching the semifinals of the Australian Open in January.

Pohankova's vocal cheering section expressed their delight at the slightly delayed victory, with Pohankova giving the dozen friends and family members credit for her success this week.

"So many people, my friends, my close family, I like it when the crowd push me on every point, I like it," said Pohankova, the second straight Slovakian girl to reach the final, with Renata Jamrichova taking the title last year. "It's so nice. It's unbelievable. After the semifinals, my emotions is, I don't know. I'm so excited and I think tomorrow will be a very good match."

Pohankova and Pareja have not played, but Pareja said they had practiced together at Roehampton last week and warmed up together this week, and she will prepare for the Saturday afternoon final on Court One with some pre-match scouting.

"I'll have to watch a bit more of her in videos," said Pareja, who cites that as a regular part of her preparation. "I'll be sure to have a good game plan."

Whether she'll have much time to do that scouting is an open question, as she spent Friday evening competing in the doubles semifinal with Thea Frodin. The No. 5 seeds, Frodin and Pareja advanced to the final with a 4-6, 6-4 10-4 win over Julie Pastikova of the Czech Republic and Julia Stusek of Germany.

An American girl will win the doubles championship, which will be delayed until Sunday due to Pareja's singles final on Saturday. Kristina Penickova, the Australian Open girls doubles champion with sister Annika Penickova, is partnering with Valdmannova this trip due to Annika's injury, and the No. 8 seeds have advanced to the final. They defeated the No. 3 seeds, sisters Alena and Jana Kovackova of the Czech Republic, 7-6(3), 6-2.

Ronit Karki found himself in a familiar position this afternoon on Court 12 against No. 12 seed Alexander Vasilev of Bulgaria. After losing a 12-minute service game to drop the opening set 7-5, Karki didn't let that faze him, going on to win his third sraight match over a seeded opponent from a set down.

Vasilev, a big-serving left-hander who hit 143 on the serve speed indicator during the match, struggled with his second serve, with 11 double faults assisting Karki in his comeback. Karki, who returned a 134 mph serve and won the point, got his first break in the second set aided by two of those double faults, then got another break to take a 5-2 lead, which came in handy when he was broken serving for the set. But the 17-year-old from New Jersey had no trouble in his second opportunity to even the match, thanks to his own excellent serving.

"I just served a little better in that game, made a few more first serves," said Karki, who made four of five in that game. "And that was the key. Most of those points were just serve and errors off of first serves. But I had a lot of confidence going into that game that I could serve it out and I ended up taking care of my serve well."

Karki broke at love to start the third set and as Vasilev again struggled with his second serve, Karki took control, winning the last four games for a 5-7, 6-4, 6-1 win.

Karki, the first qualifier to reach a boys junior slam final since Noah Rubin won the Wimbledon title in 2014, said he had no expectations coming into this grass court fortnight, but over the course of his seven matches has learned his strengths on the surface. 

"It's mainly the movement, I move well on the grass in my opinion," said Karki, who trains at the Gooding-Todero Academy in Orlando. "I realized it's not that different from a hard court, the ball bounces pretty normal most of the time...but it bounces much more how you would expect it to bounce than I thought it would going into this grass trip."

Karki will face No. 6 seed Ivan Ivanov of Bulgaria in Sunday's final, after he avenged his Roland Garros semifinal loss to No. 13 seed Max Schoenhaus of Germany 7-6(7), 7-6(5) to start the day on Show Court 18.

After trading breaks midway in the first set, Ivanov took a 6-3 lead in the tiebreaker, but was unable to convert, then double faulted to give Schoenhaus a set point. Schoenhaus couldn't accept the gift, double faulting himself for 7-7, and Ivanov then earned a fourth set point, with a forehand forcing an error from Schoenhaus. 

That set point ended in tragic-comic fashion depending on your perspective, with Schoenhaus controlling the point throughout, with a forehand sending Ivanov deep into the corner. Ivanov slipped and fell after barely getting a racquet on the ball to send it weakly over the net, and after he hit the shot, the racquet went flying into the air. That may have distracted Schoenhaus, standing on top of the net to put away the ball, and he netted it, giving Ivanov the set.

"I slipped, returned the ball somehow and he had all the court open," said the 16-year-old, who has trained at the Nadal Academy the past two and a half years. "He had the ball one meter away from the net. Obviously there was a lot of pressure, the crowd was fired up a bit more and he missed it. The level of relief was insane."

Ivanov had a 3-0, two-break lead in the second set, saw that slip away, but avoided a third set, with a huge forehand winner at 5-all in the tiebreaker giving him the chance for a place in the final. This time, Ivanov made good on his first attempt to close, with  Schoenhaus netting a forehand, his 45th unforced error of the match.

Ivanov is just the second Bulgarian to reach a Wimbledon boys final, with Grigor Dimitrov winning the title in 2008. 

The boys doubles final, which will be played on Court One Saturday, will feature No. 8 seeds Jagger Leach and Great Britain's Oliver Bonding and Roland Garros doubles champions Oskari Paldanius of Finland and Alan Wazny of Poland.

Leach and Bonding defeated the unseeded team of Mees Rottgering and Hidde Schoenmakers of the Netherlands, saving a match point in the deciding tiebreaker in their 4-6, 7-6(6), 11-9 victory. Paldanius and Wazny, the No. 4 seeds, defeated the unseeded team of Amir Omarkhanov of Kazakhstan and Egor Pleshivtsev of Russia 6-4, 4-6, 10-5.

In the U14 tournament, none of the three Americans advanced to the semifinals, with Emery Combs beating Sofia Bielinska of Ukraine, but finishing behind Bielinska in the group calculations.

The U14 semifinals:

Boys:

Rafael Pagonis(GRE) v Nikita Berdin(RUS)

Moritz Freitag(AUT) v Mario Vukovic(FRA)

Girls:

Liv Zingg(GBR) v Sakino Miyazawa(JPN)

Yeri Hong(KOR) v Sofia Bielinska(UKR)

Complete results for the boys are here; girls results are here.

In today's men's semifinals at Wimbledon, two-time defending champion Carlos Alcaraz of Spain defeated Taylor Fritz 6-4, 5-7, 6-3, 7-6(6) and Jannik Sinner of Italy beat Novak Djokovic of Serbia 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 to set up a rematch of last month's Roland Garros men's final.

For more on the Fritz-Alcaraz match, see this article form the Wimbledon website.