Marcel Latak and Melije Clarke, two unseeded 17-year-olds from the United States, are relatively inexperienced at the highest level of the World Tennis junior circuit compared to the other competitors this week at the
US Open Junior Championships. But that hasn't kept them from reaching their first junior slam semifinals with impressive wins today at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
Latak is playing in just his second main draw in a junior slam, with his first last year here in New York courtesy of the wild card the Kalamazoo 16s champion receives. After a lackluster summer, Latak has caught fire the past two weeks, winning the J300 in Repentigny Canada last week and beating both 2026 Australian Open boys finalists this week New York.
His tenth consecutive win came today against No. 4 seed Keaton Hance, with Latak earning his second straight victory, this one by a 6-4, 6-4 score, in the confines of Louis Armstrong Stadium.
"It's been crazy", Latak said. "If you told me before coming into this tournament that you're going to play on Armstrong twice, I would not be able to sleep, at all. But I've got to stop looking at the big board, because when I look at a point, I say 'wow', I'm playing so good."
Hance no doubt would agree, with Latak hitting his inside in forehand, a shot he said he's been working on with coach Christian Groh at his San Diego training base, consistently for winners, complementing his widely admired backhand.
The only wobble Latak showed came serving for the match at 5-4 40-0, when several unforced errors gave Hance a chance to claw his way back in the match. But Latak hit a forehand winner to earn a fourth match point, only to make another unforced error, but an ace to reach a fifth match point allowed him to relax.
"I didn't really feel nervous until 40-0," said Chicago area resident, who had suffered a couple of painful losses when serving for the match last month. "Then I shanked a few balls and it didn't look good. The goal was to just go body to make some first serves, but I said 'I'm just going to go for it' and I ended up hitting an ace. That really helped me, because I could breathe for a second."
Latak made his first serve on match point No. 5 and when Hance's return sailed long, Latak tossed his racquet aside and raised his arms in triumph.
"It's hard to say something, just shock a little bit," Latak said of the prospect of playing in the semifinals of a junior slam after never winning a match at that level before this week. "But I feel proud that I was able to stick in."
Latak will face No. 2 seed Jamie Mackenzie of Germany, who trailed No. 5 seed Jack Kennedy 6-4, 3-1 before winning nine straight games and holding on for a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory, his first in three meetings with the 18-year-old New Yorker.
"The match changed as soon as he realized I started playing a different way," said the TCU freshman, who moved to Germany from New Zealand at age 12 to improve his tennis prospects. "And he started thinking, started making a lot of mistakes for his level."
Kennedy, with the crowd solidly behind him, got one of the breaks back for 4-2, but Mackenzie kept calm, broke Kennedy again with a sizzling backhand winner and relied on his serve in the final game. Although he faced a break point, Mackenzie came up with big serves when he needed them, including two aces, one on match point.
"Thank God I served well there," said the 2026 Roland Garros doubles champion, who has reached his first junior slam semifinal in singles with the win. "Break point down, to hit an ace and two unreturnables was important for me. I didn't want to have to serve that one out again."
Surviving three match points against him, and a bout of cramps that struck during the final points of the nearly-three hour match, No.1 seed Guto Miguel outlasted American and No. 6 seed Jordan, Lee, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (13-11).
The final set had more twists and turns than San Francisco’s Lombard Street. Miguel, the Roland Garros champ, broke serve in the second game and jumped out to a 3-0 lead.
Lee, the Wimbledon champion, went down 5-2 and it looked like the match was just about over.
But the Florida 16-year-old staged a stirring rally, breaking serve at 5-3 and then holding to 5-all, throwing his fist in the air and exhorting the crowd after his last service point.
Both players then held to set up a dramatic 10-point tiebreak. Lee blasted a beautiful backhand down the line to get to 7-all in the tiebreak, and after Lee took the lead with a backhand volley winner, Guto came up limping and was hopping around in the backcourt with what looked like cramps.
Lee got to match point at 9-8, but Guto blasted a forehand crosscourt winner to save it. At 9-10, Guto saved another match point when his serve ticked the tape and induced a Lee error.
A third match point for Lee was erased by a Guto net charge and overheard smash. Finally at 12-11, Guto had his first chance to win, and a Lee backhand sailed into the net.
The Brazilian collapsed in relief and shook his arms in joy while lying on his back before getting up to hug his opponent.
Miguel was requested for required post-match interviews by both U.S. and Brazilian media, and US Open officials told the press that he would do his interviews after his doubles match later, which is often the case.
However, possibly due to fatigue, Miguel and partner Ziga Sesko withdrew from their doubles match, giving a walkover to Latak and partner Tanishk Konduri. US Open and World Tennis officials did not make any arrangements to have him fulfill his media obligations, saying he had left the tournament grounds.
Miguel’s opponent in Friday’s semifinal is seventh-seeded Austrian Thilo Behrmann, a soft-spoken 18-year-old who makes plenty of noise on the court. Behrmann, who said his body was still fatigued from a tough third-round win over American No. 12 seed Andy Johnson, battled through Italy’s unseeded Simone Massellani, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3.
“I was feeling a bit from the match yesterday, a bit tired, but I just kept fighting and then in the second and third sets I started playing better, and then he gave me some things.”
Behrmann said he attacked Massellani’s forehand more and more as the match went on, “and that’s what gave me a lot of points.”
Behrmann and Miguel met in the Roland Garros quarterfinals this year, with Miguel managing a 6-1, 3-6, 6-2 victory.
“It was very close, so it’s definitely going to be very tough tomorrow,” Behrmann said.
Behrmann said he’s been coached in Austria for several years by Wolfgang Thiem, father of 2020 U.S. Open men’s singles winner Dominic Thiem.
Clarke also has a famous name on her coaching team, with US Open and Wimbledon semifinalist Lori McNeil mentoring her. Clarke, who defeated No. 8 seed Nana Leme Da Silva of Brazil 6-3, 5-6, 6-3 today in her first junior slam quarterfinal, said McNeil has been emphasizing the process of improving.
"It's mainly keep your head down, keep working, no matter what's happening," Clarke said. "If you continue to work hard every day, it will eventually translate, even if you don't see it right in the moment. Just keep doing what you're doing, keep being disciplined and it will all come when it's ready."
Clarke was up a set and 4-2 before Leme Da Silva began to connect more regularly on her big groundstrokes.
"She definitely rushed me a lot," Clarke said of the latter stages of the second set. "She takes advantage of her serve plus-one, so it was just about digging out the first couple of balls and assert my dominance later in the rally. But she started playing a little bit more confidently and I started being a little bit more passive."
Most players dodge the expectations question, but Clarke admitted she had a goal as she approached her fourth junior slam.
"I was like, I'm going to do better than I've done at the other ones," said Clarke, who reached the third round at Wimbledon, losing to eventual champion Anna Pushkareva in three sets. "I'm going to improve and show that I can do this. Not only to myself, but to everyone else, that I deserve to be in a spot like this."
That spot will be against World Junior No. 1 and finalist in the last two junior slams, Xinran Sun of China, who defeated No. 7 seed Mariia Makarova of Russia 7-6(2), 6-1 in today's first match on Court 17. Sun, the only girl still alive in both singles and doubles, had to rally from a 5-2 first-set deficit to defeat No. 7 Mariia Makarova in straight sets, saving six set points in the 66-minute opening set.
After a medical timeout at 5-2, Sun's rally began.
“A week before the tournament started I had some right knee pain, from changing from clay to hardcourt so quickly,” said Sun, who did not play a hardcourt warmup event. “But after I was down 2-5, I just said, ‘okay, we just focus on each point. I cannot think about the pain.'’’
Sun and Clarke will be playing for the first time Friday.
One of the girls quarterfinals was much shorter than the others. No. 2 seed Jana Kovackova, of Czechia, won the first set over American No. 6 seed Janae Preston, 6-2.
At the end of the set, Preston took a bathroom break and saw a trainer between sets.
After four minutes, the trainer, not Preston, returned to the court and told the chair umpire that Preston couldn’t continue.
Yesterday, during her win over Polina Skliar, Preston got sick on the court at the end of the first set tiebreaker, but after a medical timeout, was able to recover and win the set, and the match.
“I didn’t know there was anything wrong with her, I couldn’t tell,” Kovackova said.
The Czech teen said she was “so mad” after her doubles loss on Wednesday, but played well on Thursday to advance to her second Slam singles semifinal of the year.
“I think I played better than the matches before,” Kovackova said.
Still, much like she did on Wednesday, she downplayed her chances of winning the U.S. Open singles title.
“I’m not going to win,” she repeated with a laugh on Thursday. “But we will see.”
Kovackova will play in the semis against Wimbledon champion Anna Pushkareva, who turned back 14-year-old fellow Russian Ekaterina Dotsenko, 6-4, 6-0 to reach her second semi of the slam year.
After Pushkareva lost her doubles match, she was all smiles and giddy enthusiasm about playing in another junior slam semifinal.
“I have such special feelings to play here because New York is a really beautiful city and there’s a really special energy and it’s my first time ever here and I’m so excited to be here,” Pushkareva said, all in one breath. “Today I played good and just tried to focus on the ball and do what I do every day, I know she’s a really good player and I was able to do really good.”
Pushkareva had a very funny reaction when asked if her life had changed since winning Wimbledon.
“Before I won Wimbledon I think, yeah, if I will win Wimbledon I will wake up every morning and I will think about how I’m Wimbledon champion, and I don’t need to get out of bed, I don’t need to have practices, I’m already the Wimbledon champion,” she said. “And the reality was, you’re still just a tennis player. Maybe a little more attention, more cameras, but it’s not really changed much in my life.”
Pushkareva and Kovackova have not played on the World Tennis junior circuit, but Kovackova posted a win over Pushkareva at the Tennis Europe Masters 14s in 2023.
The boys doubles final Saturday will feature at least one American, with Latak and Konduri facing Safir Azam and Kazakhstan's Damir Zhalgasbay in Friday's semifinal. Latak and Konduri received the walkover from Wimbledon champions Sesko and Miguel and Zhalgasbay and Azam defeated Yannik Alvarez of Puerto Rico and Ryan Cozad despite losing an epic second set tiebreaker, 6-3, 6-7(14), 10-6.
The other semifinal features two more unseeded teams: Aaron Gabet of France and Valentin Gonzalez-Galino of Spain against Mark Ceban and Rhys Lawlor of Great Britain. Gabet and Gonzalez-Galino defeated wild cards Daniel Malacek and Kamil Stolarczyk of the United States 2-6, 6-3, 10-7 and Ceban and Lawlor beat Ameicans Vihaan Reddy and Mason Vaughan 6-3, 6-3.
Unseeded wild cards Kristina and Annika Penickova defeated No. 8 seeds Alyssa James of Jamaica and Polina Skliar of Ukraine 6-4, 6-4 in today's quarterfinals and will face giant-killers Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi and Antonina Sushkova of Ukraine in the semifinals. Rajeshwaran and Sushkova, who dealt Kovackova her first junior slam doubles defeat of the year yesterday, beat No. 4 seeds Pushkareva and Felitsata Dorofeeva-Rybas of Russia 6-4, 6-4.
Top seeds Makarova and Sun ended the run of singles qualifiers Natalie Kha of the United States and Kokona Ishii of Japan 6-4, 6-3 and will play unseeded Polina Berezina and Alisa Terentyeva of Russia, who beat Renee Alame of Australia and American Thea Frodin 6-0, 7-6(3).
Makarova and Sun are the only seeded doubles team both doubles semifinals.
In the
US Open men's doubles semfinals today, No. 5 seeds Christian Harrison and Neal Skupski(LSU) of Great Britain defeated top seeds Harri Heliovaara of Finland and Henry Patten(UNC-Asheville) of Great Britain 7-6(4), 6-2. Tim Puetz(Auburn) and Kevin Krawietz of Germany defeated Rajeev Ram(Illinois) and Great Britain's Joe Salisbury(Memphis) 6-3, 6-4.
The women's doubles final, which, like three of the four junior semifinals, is at noon
Friday, will feature top seeds Taylor Townsend and Czechia's Katerina Siniakova against the wild card team of Robin Montgomery and Ashlyn Krueger.
The women's final will not feature an American, as top seed Aryna Sabalenka defeated Jessica Pegula 7-5, 6-2 and Elena Rybakina beat Coco Gauff 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.
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