My Junior Orange Bowl Recap; Top Seeds Advance at USTA 18s and 16s Winter Nationals; No. 1 Seed in Girls 14s Out With Illness; Australian Open Increases Junior Travel Grant

My last tournament of 2023 ended eight days ago in Coral Gables Florida, with the finals of the Junior Orange Bowl. If, in holiday preparations, you missed that exceedingly compressed tournament, my recap of it for the Tennis Recruiting Network was published today. Boys 14s champion Andrew Johnson and Girls 14s semifinalist Raya Kotseva took a very short break before heading to the USTA Winter National 14s in San Antonio, where they have both advanced to the third round.

Due to rain yesterday, the first round of singles for the G16s and G18s were played today at the USTA National Campus in Lake Nona, with four Top 16 seeds, three in the 16s and one in 18s, falling in the opening round. Carrie-Ann Hoo, the No. 5 seed in girls 16s, was the highest seed to exit, with Zimora McKnight defeating Hoo 2-6, 6-3, 6-4. No. 14 seed Brooke Wallman and No. 15 seed Rachel Gee lost to McKenzie Shelton and Abigail Gordon respectively. The only Top 16 seed to lose in the G18s was No. 11 Emily Deming, who was beaten by Hayden Mulberry 2-6, 6-4, 6-4. 

The boys 16s and boys 18s played their first round singles matches last night and did not play singles today. All of the Top 16 seeds in the 16s advanced to Saturday's second round; three Top 16 seeds fell in the first round of boys 18s:  No. 11 seed Maxim Kalinin, No. 15 seed John Cross and No. 16 seed Jaden Brady. Kalinin lost to Nav Dayal 7-5, 6-3; Cross to Dylan Long 6-2, 7-6(9) and Brady to Stephan Gershfeld 6-1, 6-2.

The top seeds in the girls 18s doubles, Saray Tli-Pipari and Linda Ziets-Segura, who had a bye in the first round, lost in the second round to Josephine Lombardi and Kori Montoya 6-4, 6-4.

Top seeds in the boys 18s doubles, Shaurya Bharadwaj and Jimin Jung, won their first and second round matches today. One round of singles and one round of doubles is on Saturday's schedule for both the boys and girls 16s and 18s.

The second round of the 12s and 14s Winter Nationals in San Antonio Texas is complete, with just one major exit. Girls 14s top seed Bella Arwood, a blue chip from Georgia, could not play her second round match due to illness, giving Masha Semenova a walkover into the third round. 

The boys 12s finally lost their first Top 16 seed, with No. 13 Dani Lagarija falling to Jacques Chen 6-1, 6-4.

Yesterday, Craig Tiley, the director of the Australian Open, announced a 10 million dollar increase in prize money for the 2024 event.

"We've upped prize money for every round at the Australian Open with the major increases in qualifying and the early rounds of singles and doubles," Tiley said.

At Melbourne, first-round qualifiers will receive a 20% increase to 31,250 Australian dollars (about $21,000). Men's and women's singles champions will receive $3.15 million Australian dollars each (about $2.15 million)

The travel stipends have also been increased, with the pros vouchers doubled, from $2500 to $5000. In an unusual move, the tournament has also doubled the junior stipend from $1000 to $2000. As far as I know, the other slams do not offer anything like a travel voucher to juniors, but on the other hand, the plane tickets to Australia are no less for juniors than for pros. (All slams provide hotel rooms and food allowances for those who make the junior main draws). From Tiley's email:

Enhancing the experience for players competing in the AO Juniors Championships is another focus for us, with a range of initiatives designed to welcome them into the Grand Slam family, including doubling the travel grant to $1000 for all competitors.

Amounts aside, it's heartening to see a slam consider the juniors at all in their communications, and it hopefully raises the bar for the other three slams.