Hance Faces Sesko in Australian Open Boys Final, Efremova and Tupitsyna Meet for AO Girls Title; Harrison and Skupski Capture Men's Doubles Title in Melbourne; Bender and Gardality Win Les Petits As Doubles Championship

I am planning to do two posts today, this one with a recap of Saturday's single semifinals and doubles finals at the Australian Open Junior Championships, and one much, much later tonight, after the completion of Sunday's singles finals.

For the fourth time in five years, an American boy has reached the Australian Open final, with Keaton Hance joining Bruno Kuzuhara(2022), Learner Tien(2023) and Benjamin Willwerth(2025) after beating No. 8 seed Zangar Nurlanuly of Kazakhstan 6-3, 6-2 in the semifinals.

After a messy win over Kuan-Shou Chen of Taiwan in the quarterfinals, the fourth-seeded Hance was in notably better form against Nurlanuly, who made 34 unforced errors, while hitting only nine winners. Nurlanuly started well, with a 3-1 lead, but Hance was able to lift his level enough to win five straight games and take the 36-minute set.

Nurlanuly had four double faults in the first set, which didn't help his cause, but even more damaging were the two he had in the first game of the second set, both at deuce. Hance broke after the second and held easily for 2-0, and while Nurlanuly kept within range, he appeared to be physically hampered in the last half of the set, taking an off-court medical timeout before Hance served at 3-2. Hance showed no signs of being bothered by the delay, holding at love for 4-2 and breaking quickly for a 5-2 lead. 

Serving for the final, Hance went down 15-30, but won the next three points, closing out the match with a forehand winner and an ace.

Hance's opponent in the final will be No. 7 seed Ziga Sesko of Slovenia, who beat No. 3 seed Ryo Tabata of Japan 6-3, 6-3, in similarly routine fashion. Unlike Hance, who had 10 winners and 22 unforced errors, Sesko was net positive in winners with 26, against 22 unforced errors and faced only one break point.

Neither Sesko nor Hance, both 17, had been beyond the singles quarterfinals of a junior slam until this week, and while Hance is hoping to emulate Kuzuhara, the last American boys champion in Melbourne, Sesko is in unchartered waters for his country as the first Slovenia boy to make a junior slam singles final.

Both Hance and Sesko were 0-1 against their semifinal opponents, with those losses coming at the 2022 ITF World Junior Tennis 14U team competition in the Czech Republic. That is also the same tournament where Hance and Sesko met for the only time, with Sesko winning their match 6-2, 6-0 in the round robin stage.

In the girls semifinals, unseeded Ekaterina Tupitsyna of Russia continued her unexpected run, beating No. 8 seed Thea Frodin 6-3, 6-4.  After getting a break to go up 3-2 in the first set, Frodin lost eight straight games. Down 4-0, Frodin got one of the breaks back and held for 4-3, but couldn't draw even, and Tupisyna held at love earn her spot in the final. The 17-year-old had not won a match in her two previous appearances at junior slams in 2025.

In the only semifinal to go three sets, No. 3 seed Ksenia Efremova of France defeated unseeded Rada Zolotareva of Russia 6-0, 4-6, 6-4. The 16-year-old, who changed her representation from Russia to France earlier in her junior career, is playing her third Australian Open Junior tournament, having reached the quarterfinals in her 2024 debut as a 14-year-old. She also reached the quarterfinals at last year's US Open Junior Championships.

As is the tradition at the Australian Open, the junior finals are played back-to-back on Rod Laver Arena usually before the women's singles final. With the junior tournament ending on a Sunday this year, they will be played prior to the men's final, beginning with the girls final at 8 p.m Saturday in the United States, followed by the boys final.

The girls doubles title was won by top seeds Alena Kovackova and Jana Kovackova, who beat unseeded Tereza Hermanova and Denisa Zoldakova 6-1, 6-3 in an all-Czech final. The Kovackova sisters now have won two junior slams in a row, after taking the US Open girls doubles title last September. 

The boys doubles title went to the unseeded pair of Connor Doig of South Africa and Dimitar Kisimov of Bulgaria, who beat the Australian wild card team of Ymerali Ibraimi and Cooper Kose 6-3, 6-4 in the final. 

For more on the junior doubles finals, see this article from the Australian Open website.

Christian Harrison and Great Britain's Neal Skupski(LSU) won the men's doubles title, with the No. 6 seeds beating Australian wild cards Jason Kubler and Marc Polmans 7-6(4), 6-4. It's the first slam title for Harrison and the second for Skupski, with this their first major as a team. For more on the final, see this article from the Australian Open website.

No. 4 seeds Elise Mertens of Belgium and Shuai Zhang of China won the women's doubles title, beating No. 7 seeds Anna Danilina(Florida) of Kazakhstan and Aleksandra Krunic of Serbia 7-6(4), 6-4 in the final.

No. 5 seed Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan won the women's singles title, beating No. 1 seed Aryna Savalenka of Belarus 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.

The singles finals are set and the doubles champions have been crowned at Les Petits As, the prestigious 14-and-under tournament in Tarbes France.

Qualifier Richard Mitchell of Switzerland has already won seven matches this week, dropping just one set in the process, with the 13-year-old facing last week's champion in Bolton, No. 16 seed Lyoma Hotelier of Japan, in Sunday's final. 

Mitchell defeated No. 9 seed Luis Bernardo Saraiva of Portugal 6-3, 6-4, while Hotelier beat No. 10 seed Jonas Waelti of Switzerland 6-2, 6-2 for his tenth consecutive win.

Top girls seed Elizavetz Anikina of Estonia defeated No. 5 seed Polina Kashitsyna of Russia 7-6(5), 6-1 to reach the final, where her opponent will be No. 10 seed Aleksandra Karabanova of Russia. Karabanova defeated unseeded compatriot Vasilisa Marchenko 6-1, 6-4 in Saturday's semifinals.

Karabanova won the girls doubles title with Kashitsyna; the No. 4 seeds defeated the unseeded Russian team of Varvara Makarova and Ildana Zaripova 6-3, 7-5 in the final.

The unseeded American team of David Bender and Daniel Gardality won the boys doubles title, beating No. 5 seeds Martin Adamca and Matteo Sanson of Slovakia 6-4, 6-3 in the final. Bender and Gardality took out the No. 4 and No. 7 seeds in the second and quarterfinal rounds.

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