US Junior Davis Cup and Junior Fed Cup Teams Win Round Robin Groups, Advance to Quarterfinals; Nakashima Reaches Quarterfinals at Tiburon Challenger

©Colette Lewis 2019--
Lake Nona, FL--

With their spots in the Junior Davis Cup and Junior Fed Cup quarterfinals already assured after Wednesday's second day of round robin play, the US teams were able to concentrate on finishing at the top of their groups, and both succeeded in beating their fifth-seeded opponents on another hot but dry day at the USTA National Campus.

The US girls, the No. 2 seeds, are the only team of the 8 girls and 8 boys teams advancing to the quarterfinals who did so without the loss of a rubber, going 9-0.  In today's match with Thailand, Robin Montgomery won the closest match any American girl had played so far, beating Lanlana Tararudee 6-4, 6-4 at No. 2 singles. Katrina Scott, playing No. 1 singles, defeated Pimrada Attavapornvanit 6-1, 6-2 to clinch the win, but the doubles was played (not all of them were), with Montgomery and Connie Ma defeating Attavapornvanit and Thamonpan Jonglertrakul 6-4, 6-2.

Thailand finished second in Group D with a 2-1 record in round robin play and has drawn No. 3 seed Czech Republic in the quarterfinals.  The US will face unseeded Italy in the quarterfinals, with Italy losing to top seed Russia 2-0 in Group A to finish in second place.

The other unseeded team to advance to the Junior Fed Cup quarterfinals is France, who lost to Czech Republic in the opening round, but defeated No. 7 seed Argentina today to finish second in Group B. France has the highest ranked girl participating this week in Elsa Jacquemot, who is No. 12 in the ITF junior rankings.

France will play No. 6 seed Germany, who lost to unseeded Morocco on the first day of round robin play, but have been playing lights out since then, beating No. 4 seed Canada 2-1 yesterday and Serbia 3-0 today. The loss to Germany put Canada in a must-win situation today against Morocco, who was sitting at the top of Group C at 2-0. And in order to eliminate Morocco, Canada had to win all three matches with Germany's sweep of Serbia, which they did. Playing on the Tennis Channel Championship Court, Annabelle Xu beat Yasmine Kabbaj 6-3, 6-2 at No. 2 singles to give Canada a 1-0 lead; Melodie Collard defeated Sara Akid 6-4, 6-3 at No. 1 singles to make it 2-0 and Xu and Collard won the doubles over Akid and Kabbaj 6-2, 6-2 for the sweep.

Canada's Junior Fed Cup Captain Simon Larose

Canada's captain Simon Larose isn't one to crunch the numbers involved in the round robin scenarios, but he said his team had it all figured out.

"To be 100 percent sure we'd advance, we had to win all three, but I didn't do all the calculations," Larose said. "I'm not very good at looking at what's going to happen if this and this and that. As a coach, I just focus on getting my players ready to play every day. The girls were all over it though, but I didn't want to hear about it. I said, you guys calculate it, that's fine, I don't want to hear it."

Larose said his team had no trouble putting the loss to Germany Wednesday behind them.

"They [Germany] came out balling," Larose said. "My girls tried hard but the other girls were actually too good that day. They outplayed us definitely. It was just great tennis and sometimes that's how it is."

Canada finished second to Germany in Group C based on sets won and loss and will face top seed Russia in the quarterfinals.

The US Junior Davis Cup team defeated Great Britain 2-1, with Toby Kodat beating Derrick Chen at No. 2 singles 6-4, 6-3 and Martin Damm clinching the tie with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Lui Maxted at No. 1 singles. Jack Pinnington-Jones, who played No. 1 singles on Tuesday and Wednesday, has not played any doubles and did not play at all today, reportedly due to injury.

Dali Blanch and Kodat played the doubles match against Chen and Maxted, coming from a set and two breaks down to force a match tiebreaker, but Chen and Maxted won the final four points of the match tiebreaker to earn a 7-5, 6-7(9) 10-8 victory.

The US will play defending champion Spain in the quarterfinals, after the unseeded Spanish team came from behind to beat Morocco 2-1 and finish second in Group B to No. 2 seed Japan. Japan defeated No. 8 seed Czech Republic 2-1 to finish 3-0. Japan will play Great Britain in the quarterfinals.

The other unseeded boys team in the quarterfinals is Paraguay, who lost to No. 4 seed Serbia 3-0, but finished second in Group C with a 2-1 record. Paraguay faces No. 3 seed France, who finished at the top of Group B, while No. 7 seed Hong Kong, who finished second in Group B, plays Serbia in the quarterfinals.

The final round robin standings, with top 2 finishers advancing to quarterfinals:

Junior Davis Cup:

Group A
1. USA[1]
2. Great Britain[5]
3. Canada
4. Bolivia

Group B
1. France[3]
2. Hong Kong[7]
3. Ukraine
4. Syria

Group C
1. Serbia[4]
2. Paraguay
3. Australia[6]
4. Egypt

Group D
1. Japan[2]
2. Spain
3. Czech Republic[8]
4. Morocco

Junior Fed Cup:

Group A
1. Russia[1]
2. Italy
3. Peru
4. Chinese Taipei[8]

Group B
1. Czech Republic[3]
2. France
3. Argentina[7]
4. China

Group C
1. Germany[6]
2. Canada[4]
3. Morocco
4. Serbia

Group D
1. USA[2]
2. Thailand[5]
3. Korea
4. Brazil

For more on today's action, see the ITF Junior website, with the article focusing on the unseeded boys from Paraguay and the unseeded girls from Italy.

For all of today's results and tomorrow's schedule, see the ITF tournament website.

The US teams will be featured on Tennis Channel Friday at 11 a.m., with coverage of both girls on Court 2 and boys on Championship Court.

For links to live scoring and live streaming, see the National Campus website.

Eighteen-year-old wild card Brandon Nakashima advanced to the quarterfinals of the ATP 100 Challenger in Tiburon today, getting his second consecutive victory over a seed. A day after beating No. 6 seed Michael Mmoh 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, the US Open boys semifinalist took out No. 10 seed Christopher Eubanks 7-6(5), 7-5 to reach a Challenger quarterfinal for the first time.