USTA Clay Court Championships Off to Soggy Start; Top Seed Eliminated at Grade A in Milan; Carton, Stearns, Hutchinson, Yu Win ITF J5 Singles Titles
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| photo credit: Bill Kallenberg |
Five of the USTA Clay Court Championships are taking place in Florida this week, and has been the case for several weeks now in the Sunshine State, rain has been the nemesis. Below are the Top 8 seeds in each division, with links to the draws in the headings. The B16s and 18s tournament has posted a preview article here.
B12s Orlando FL1. Jack Secord
2. Yannik Alvarez
3. Navneet Raghuram
4. Colin McPeek
5. Liam Alvarez
6. Izyan Ahmad
7. Ryan Cozad
8. Jordan Lee
G12s Ft. Lauderdale
1. Isabelle DeLuccia
2. Meghan Rowley
3. Ciara Harding
4. Sena Yoon
5. Anita Tu
6. Ellery Mendell
7. Nancy Lee
8. Filipa Delgado
B14s Miami Beach FL
1. Braeden Gelletich
2. Nicholas Patrick
3. A Filer
4. Dominick Mosejczuk
5. Jimin Jung
6. Zachary Cohen
7. Avner Wong
8. Jon Gamble
G14s Plantation FL
1. Katie Rolls
2. Eva Oxford
3. Sydney Jara
4. Tianmei Wang
5. Claire An
6. Claire Hill
7. Kayla Chung
8. Laima Frosch
B16s Delray Beach FL
G16s Huntsville AL
1. Amber Yin
2. Kinaa Graham
3. Brooke Lynn Schafer
4. Yichen Zhao
5. Arina Oreshchenkova
6. Stephanie Yakoff
7. Ava Bruno
8. Audrey Spencer
B18s Delray Beach FL
G18s Mount Pleasant SC
1. Akari Matsuno
2. Ahmani Guichard
3. Theadora Rabman
4. Savannah Broadus
5. Emma Charney
6. Meera Jesudason
7. Ann Guerry
8. Ariana Pursoo
The turnaround from grass to clay on the ITF Junior Tour has been a swift one, with the Grade A Trofeo Bonfiglio in Milan Italy beginning today, having been rescheduled from its usual spot in May prior to the French Open. The European players are ready to return to clay, with their JB1 European Championships on clay later this month, but several Americans have also entered, some of whom played Wimbledon last week.
The US girls in the draw are: wild card Tyra Grant, qualifiers Madeleine Jessup and Sonya Macavei, Alexis Blokhina, Clervie Ngounoue and Madison Sieg, the No. 4 seed. Sieg, who lost in the first round of singles and the quarterfinals of doubles at Wimbledon last week, lost in the first round in Milan today.
The US boys in the draw are: Braden Shick, who lost his first round match today, Timothy Phung, a lucky loser, Benjamin Kittay and No. 2 seed Dali Blanch.
The boys No. 1 seed Sean Cuenin of France lost in the first round today, with Henrique Rocha of Portugal taking out the No. 12 junior in the ITF rankings 6-4, 6-2. Top seed Alexandra Eala of the Philippines defeated wild card Brenda Fruhvirtova of the Czech Republic 6-1, 6-2 in her first round today.
With the postponement of the tournament, the field is not as strong as usual, with the cutoffs for the main draw 159 for the boys and 129 for the girls. But it does provide an opportunity for players who could not get into Wimbledon to earn some substantial points prior to the US Open Junior Championships cutoff date next month.
The J5 last week in Daytona Beach did manage to finish at least two finals, despite the rain that disrupted the event during the week. Top seed Nevena Carton won the girls singles title, her second on the ITF Junior Circuit, beating unseeded Ena Koike of Japan 6-1, 7-5 in the final. The boys final between top seed Preston Stearns and qualifier Learner Tien was initially shown on the ITF Junior website as abandoned, but Stearns received the winner's points and Tien the finalist points, despite the 2-6, 2-2 score posted.
The boys doubles title went to the unseeded team of Stefan Regalia and Tien, who beat wild cards Max Dussault and Max Exsted 6-3, 7-6(4). Top seeds Ahmani Guichard and Lara are showing as the girls doubles champions, over No. 3 seeds Tatum Evans and Meera Jesudason, with no score given for the final.
At last week's J5 in Kenya, Cleo Hutchinson won her second straight tournament in Nairobi, with the unseeded 14-year-old defeating No. 2 seed Rufaro Magarira of Zimbabwe 6-3, 6-4 in the final.
At last week's J5 in Hong Kong, 15-year-old Aaron Yu won his first ITF Junior Circuit title in just his third tournament, defeating No. 3 seed Kwok Shun Dasson Chan of Hong Kong 6-3, 6-2.
At last week's J3 in Ukraine, Ellis Short and Yannik Rahman took the doubles title, with the top seeds defeating No. 3 seeds Branko Djuric of Serbia and Adam Kresina of the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-4 in the final. Rahman, the No. 2 seed, lost in the singles final to top seed Olaf Pieczkowski of Poland 6-1, 6-4.
Elli Mandlik won her second consecutive $15K title in Tunisia, with the No. 4 seed defeating unseeded Angelica Raggi of Italy 6-3, 4-6, 6-0 in the final. Recent Texas A&M graduate Valentin Vacherot of France won the men's $15K title in Tunisia, defeating 19-year-old Omni Kumar(Duke) 6-4, 6-4 in the final.
Ben Rothenburg of the New York Times wrote an article about the all-American boys Wimbledon final between Samir Banerjee and Victor Lilov, which can be found here.
5 comments:
Just curious if you have noticed how utterly mean the junior girls have become? Its shocking. We have been going to tournaments, both boys and girls, for 10 years now. The boys are certainly competitive, have their arguments about line calls, but after the matches they almost always touch racquets and chat.
The girls have become monstrous though. We see girl after girl using bad language, talking nasty to their parents and/or coaches, treating the other players poorly. And now its common for a good player to win a match easily and simply not even say a word to their opponent.
We just saw it again at a UTR in Boca last weekend. The better players would win rather easily in the first round, their opponents would go up to them to touch racquets, and the winners simply storm away, get their stuff, and leave. No chatting, no friendships, nothing anymore.
Why have junior tennis girls take this turn towards antisocial behavior while the boys still usually are cordial or even buddies?
I quite agree with the aBove comments. Also girls' parents (fathers in particular) are from time to time behaving very aggressively, towards boh their daughters and other players.
Oh my goodness do I agree with these comments. The boys can yell at each other but later you see the parents arranging for hits. We saw these two boys a few weeks ago arguing the entire match, but later that night saw them at a local fun spot riding go carts together. They were from different parts of the US so I doubt they knew each other before. The girls are completely different, they have their 1-2 tennis friends and anyone else is the enemy. Yes, the mean girl syndrome is off the charts in junior tennis.
Seems like the girls learn from their moms and the boys learn from their dads!
My daughter plays Rec and high school tennis because I didn’t want her personality development altered by the tournament tennis girls.’No regrets.
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