Top Seeds Cruise on Opening Day of Junior Orange Bowl; Tuck One Step Closer to Goal in B12s; Australian Open Junior Acceptances Include 13 Americans

©Colette Lewis 2022--
Coral Gables FL--

The 61st Junior Orange Bowl championships began today with perfect weather: sunny skies, little wind or humidity and temperatures in the low 80s, giving the underdogs few advantages over the top seeds.

All four of the top seeds advanced easily in today's first round: Girls 14s top seed Hannah Klugman of Great Britain, a 14s quarterfinalist last year, defeated Anjani Vickneswaran of Arizona 6-0, 6-0; Boys 14s top seed and Eddie Herr champion Se Hyuk Cho of Korea downed Guillermo Narcio of Mexico 6-2, 6-1; Girls 12s top seed Christina Lyutova of Washington, a finalist in the 12s last year, beat Enya Hamilton of Arkansas 6-1, 6-0 and Boys 12s top seed Taiki Takizawa of Australia defeated Andrew McMillan of South Carolina 6-0, 6-1.

The only No. 2 seed to play today was Tabb Tuck Boys 12s, with the draws split in the Girls 12s and the Boys and Girls 14s, so their No. 2 seeds, and all players in the bottom half, will contest their first round matches Wednesday. 

Tuck, the Eddie Herr 12s finalist, defeated Renzo Gopez of Delaware 6-0, 6-0, although the match wasn't quite as lopsided as the score might indicate. 

"He was a good player, he rips the ball," said the 12-year-old from Alabama, who spent the week between the Eddie Herr and Junior Orange Bowl training at the USTA National Campus in Lake Nona. "Every match is tough, especially at the Orange Bowl."

Tuck, who worked with Richard Ashby in Lake Nona, was able to see the results of that session in today's match.

"I improved my game in a couple of areas, especially returns and ground strokes," Tuck said. "I also played against a few different players from Canada. It was a good experience, they were both very good players."

Tuck was candid about his expectations for this week.

"My goal, since the beginning of the year, has been to win the Orange Bowl," Tuck said. "I lost here last year in the second round and I really just love this place. It's such a cool tournament, it would be great to win it."

The second round of the Boys 12s will be played Wednesday, with Takizawa facing Antoine Tardif of Canada and Tuck playing Tri Srisen of Thailand.

Draws with results and Wednesday's match times can be found here.

For more coverage of the Junior Orange Bowl, with a focus on the Canadian contingent competing in the tournament, can be found here.

The acceptances for the Australian Open Junior Championships were posted today, with five American boys and eight American girls in the main draw.

The boys are Cooper Williams, Learner Tien, Alexander Frusina, Kyle Kang and Kaylan Bigun. The girls are Clervie Ngounoue, Kaitlin Quevedo, Qavia Lopez, Iva Jovic, Tatum Evans, Ariana Pursoo, Mia Slama and Theadora Rabman.

I was surprised to see Orange Bowl finalist Rodrigo Pacheco Mendez of Mexico in the acceptances, as he told me Sunday he was not going to Australia, but was planning to play the three other junior slams in 2023.  So I expect he will withdraw, as will several other top players, I'm sure.

The boys ranking cutoff was 99; the girls ranking cutoff was 68, which is quite a large discrepancy, but probably just a function of the number of boys who are ranked now, but not eligible to play junior tournaments in 2023.

The only player to receive acceptance based on their ATP or WTA ranking is 16-year-old Sara Bejlek of the Czech Republic, who at WTA 181, will no doubt be making the trip for women's qualifying.