Wimbledon Junior Draws Released, with 15 Americans Competing; Four US Juniors into Final Round of Qualifying; ITF J300 in Roehampton Concludes Friday; Pegula, Kenin, Paul and Tiafoe Reach Wimbledon Round Three
Although the final round of qualifying will be played Friday at Roehampton, the draws for the Wimbledon Junior Championships were released this afternoon in advance of the start of play on Saturday.
Six US boys are currently in the draw: Alexander Razeghi, Cooper Williams[4], Roy Horovitz, Darwin Blanch[9], Kaylan Bigun and Kyle Kang. Roland Garros finalist Juan Carlos Prado Angelo of Bolivia, who lost in the first round at Roehampton, is the top seed.
There are nine US girls in the main draw pending Friday's final qualifying results: Tyra Grant[15], Thea Rabman, Mia Slama, Alexia Harmon, Kaitlin Quevedo[6], Ariana Pursoo, Tatum Evans, Valeria Ray and Clervie Ngounoue. Quevedo did not play this week's warmup in Roehampton, with top seed Alina Korneeva also skipping that event as she aims for an unprecedented third straight girls junior slam in singles.
Four Americans are through to the final round of qualifying after today's action. No. 13 seed Cooper Woestendick defeated wild card Kyle McKay of Great Britain 6-3, 6-4 and will face Canadian Duncan Chan(TCU), who beat top seed Lasse Poertner of Germany 4-6, 7-6(6), 10-2. Adhithya Ganesan(Cornell) defeated No. 6 seed Pedro Rodrigues of Brazil 7-6(8), 7-6(9) to set up a meeting with No. 16 seed Carlo Caniato of Italy for a place in the main draw.
No. 9 seed Anya Murthy defeated British wild card Clara Moore 4-6 6-4, 10-2 and will play Carmen Herea of Romania Friday. Alanis Hamilton, the No. 8 seed, defeated Yoana Konstantinova of Bulgaria 6-4, 6-4. Her opponent in the final round of qualifying is No. 10 seed Elena Bertea of Romania.
It's perplexing to see that in spite of both the Australian Open and Roland Garros using full third sets throughout their junior qualifying this year, Wimbledon, who has resisted playing ITF junior rules for many years (and still has service lets) has not followed suit. Match tiebreakers in lieu of a third set, which is the standard ITF Junior format in qualifying, is what is being used in Wimbledon Junior qualifying. Nearly half of today's matches needed that tiebreaker to determine who would move on after splitting sets.
The finals in both singles and doubles are set for the ITF J300 at Roehampton, with no Americans in any of the four matches.
The boys singles final will feature No. 8 seed Joao Fonseca of Brazil and No. 6 seed Iliyan Radulov of Bulgaria.
No. 8 seed Tereza Valentova of the Czech Republic will face No. 4 seed Renata Jamrichova of Slovakia for the girls championship. The girls champion at Roehampton has won seven of the last ten Wimbledon titles, including last year, when Liv Hovde swept the grass events, so the champion is definitely one to watch next week.
The girls doubles final will feature the unseeded Australian team of Maya Joint and Lily Fairclough and No. 7 seeds Ranah Stoiber and Mingge Xu of Great Britain. Joint, from Michigan, recently began representing Australia.
Two unseeded teams will battle for the boys doubles title, with Rei Sakamoto of Japan and Jan Hrazdil of the Czech Republic facing Vit Kalina of the Czech Republic and Matic Kriznik of Slovenia.
With good weather, most of the Wimbledon second round singles matches were played, although the results were disappointing for Americans, with just four advancing to the third round: Frances Tiafoe[10], Tommy Paul[16], Sofia Kenin[Q] and Jessica Pegula[4]. Marcos Giron's second round match was suspended this evening due to darkness. Three other Americans play their second round matches Friday, as noted below:
Thursday's second round matches featuring Americans:Donna Vekic[20](CRO) d. Sloane Stephens 4-6, 7-5, 6-4
Jessical Pegula[4] d. Cristina Bucsa(ESP) 6-1, 6-4
Belinda Bencic[14](SUI) d. Danielle Collins 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(2)
Sofia Kenin[Q] d. Xinyu Wang(CHN) 6-4, 6-3
Ana Bogdan(ROU) d. Alycia Parks 6-1, 3-6, 6-2
0 comments:
Post a Comment