Eddie Herr Qualifiers in 12s, 14s and 16s Divisions; First Round of ITF J1 Eddie Herr Qualifying Complete; Lincer Reaches $15K Singles Final, Reed Wins Doubles Title

©Colette Lewis 2021--
Bradenton FL--

A perfect day for tennis saw the end of the qualifying for the younger divisions at the Eddie Herr International Junior Championships and the beginning of the qualifying for the ITF J1.

Clear skies, no wind and temperatures in the upper 60s was the backdrop, and with an absence of weather issues, all the younger qualifiers were free to enjoy the great weather, with all matches completed by 12:30 p.m. 

Below is the list of qualifiers. I have added the country name of each qualifier, information that is not available on the website. All qualifying draws can be found here.

Boys 12s:

Jae Jun Shin[1], Korea

Julian Zhang[8], USA

Amir Khan[14], USA

Qi Ao[6], USA

Levi Taylor[5], USA

Jaime Gomez Lopez[3], MEX

Matias Erices, USA

Victor Pignaton[2], BRA

Girls 12s: (finished Friday)

Camila de la Casas[1], PER

Meher Rao[7], USA

Briyana Ivanova, BUL

Luma Teixeira[6], USA

Zoe Vanina Doldan Vinales, USA

Aurora Lugo, PUR

Pepper Rickert[8], USA

Ji Yun Oh[2], KOR

Boys 14s:

Nathan Germino[1], USA

Rajat Shirur[12], USA

Keane Chambers, USA

Luise Ignacio Roble Flores[9], CHI

Nicolas Genereux[8], CAN

Venkat Rishi Batlanki, IND

Ryan Szilagy[14], USA

Jorge Andres Rodriguez Palacios[2], BOL

Girls 14s:

Vasilina Andronov[1], ISR

Cookie Jarvis-Tredgett, CAN

Dylan Gelber[4], CAN

Gretchen Wolfe[5], USA

Marianne Angel Gonzalez[11], MEX

Anna Maria Fedotova[3], DOM

Lillian Santos[8], USA

Zaire Clarke[2], USA

Boys 16s:

Jack Di Menna[13], USA

Arjan Mann, CAN

Kristian Thomas, CAN

Jack Ling[11], USA

Maxim Prunoiu, USA

Kaito Hanada, JPN

Raul de la Vega, BRA

Nathan Gold[2], USA

Girls 16s:

Stephanie Hylton, USA

Allie Bittner, USA

Ashikha Amalnathan, USA

Delanie Tribby[4], USA

Raphaelle Leroux[1], CAN

Lucia Donnelly[9], USA

Mollie Garcia[15], USA

Juhnyee See[11], USA

The J1 qualifying didn't feature any of the top nine seeds, who all received byes into Sunday's second round, and most of the 10-16 seeds advanced. The only exceptions in the girls draw was No. 11 seed Maya Iyengar, who gave a walkover to Abigail Thurmer, and No. 15 seed Violeta Martinez, who lost to Eleana Yu 6-0, 6-3.

In the boys draw, Landon Ardila picked up the only win over a 10-16 qualifying seed, beating No. 12 Meecah Bigun 6-3, 6-3.

Ardila, a 17-year-old from Texas, said he wasn't aware that the tournament was on clay, and had one hit on the Har-Tru before his first round match.

"Just the warmup this morning, that's about it," said Ardila, who had not played a match at the Eddie Herr before today. "I live in Dallas, and don't have clay at my club. It's a lot more grinding, you have to move a lot, be ready for the bad bounces. Flat serves, flat forehands aren't as effective, so you've got to hit heavier."

Ardila didn't play on the ITF Junior Circuit prior to this year, but his success this fall in two events in Texas, where he won the J5 in McKinney as a qualifier and made the final of the J4 in Corpus Christi, convinced him to sign up for the Eddie Herr.

"I played two ITFs in September and I did really well in those, so I decided to go the course of playing ITFs," Ardila said. "It's a huge tournament and a great chance to play some really good players. The first step is just to try to make main draw, get some ITF points. If I get there, I'll set some new goals."

Sunday's qualifying schedule for the J1 includes two rounds, with the first series of boys matches going out at 8:30 a.m., followed by the girls, then the boys final round and the girls final round.

The JA in Merida Mexico concludes tonight, with Linda and Brenda Fruhvirtova meeting for the girls singles title for the second consecutive week. Linda, the No. 3 seed, defeated No. 2 seed Petra Marcinko of Croatia 6-3, 6-3, while 14-year-old Brenda took out top seed Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva of Andorra 6-2, 4-6, 6-4. Last week in the final of the J1 in Guadalajara Mexico, Linda defeated Brenda 6-4, 7-6(5).

The boys singles final tonight features No. 4 seed Mili Poljicak of Croatia and No. 6 seed Adolfo Daniel Vallejo of Paraguay. 

The doubles finals were played last night, with Victoria Mboko and Kayla Cross, the No. 6 seeds beating Annabelle Xu and Naomi Xu 7-5, 6-2 in an all-Canadian championship match.  

The boys doubles title went to No. 6 seeds Juan Manuel La Serna and Lautaro Midon of Argentina, who defeated No. 7 seeds Joao Victor Couto Loureiro of Brazil and Henrique Rocha of Portugal 6-4, 0-6, 11-9 in the final.

Two American girls who entered ITF World Tennis Tour women's events rather than junior events have had impressive showings this week in Guatemala.

Sixteen-year-old Olivia Lincer, who has yet to crack the ITF Junior Circuit Top 100, has advanced to the final of the $15,000 tournament in Guatemala. The unseeded Lincer, who does not have a WTA ranking, will face top seed Hurricane Tyra Black in Saturday's all-US final. Fifteen-year-old Lexington Reed, who Lincer beat in the second round in singles, won the doubles title today, with Paris Corley(LSU). The unseeded Reed and Corley defeated the top seeds in the second round, and in the final beat No. 4 seeds Black and her partner Fernanda Astete of Chile 4-6, 7-6(1), 10-5.