After a couple of slow weeks on the World Tennis Junior Circuit for Americans, five players from the United States took singles titles last week, including two J100 titles. There were no J300s last week, and just two J200s, with Adla Lopez reaching the girls singles final at the J200 in Bolivia, losing to 15-year-old Sofiia Bielinska of Ukraine 6-1, 6-3.
At the
J100 in Dubrovik Croatia, 15-year-old Raya Kotseva of Las Vegas, who has been training in Europe and hasn't played in a junior event in the US since the qualifying of last year's US Open, won her second J100 title of the year. Seeded No. 1, Kotseva defeated unseeded Sofia Kocisova of Slovakia 6-4, 6-3 in the final. Kotseva is now up to 207 in the WT junior rankings after the title; her career-high is 114, which came after she made the final of the J300 in San Diego in March of 2025.
Eighteen-year-old Grace Dollar won her first WT junior singles title last week at the
J100 in Metepec Mexico as the No. 6 seed. She defeated No. 8 seed Vera Iamina of Russia 6-2, 6-3 in the final. Sophia Budacsek, who lost to Iamina in the singles semifinals, won the doubles title with Mexican partner Azul Lopez Vazquez R. The top seeds beat No. 4 seeds Dollar and Elsa Sahandi 6-1, 6-0 for their second straight title; they also won the doubles championship at the J100 two weeks ago in Metepec.
At the
J60 in Panama, 14-year-old Sofia Dvortsova won her third, and biggest WT junior singles title of the year. The 14-year-old top seed defeated No. 2 seed Miranda Fernandez Figueroa of Mexico 6-1, 6-3 in the final.
Fifteen-year-old Norah Davoodi won her first WT junior circuit title at the
J60 in Victoria Canada, beating Kendra Zhang of Canada 6-4, 6-0 in the girls singles final. Seventeen-year-old Jaidyn Finley reached the boys singles final and won the doubles title with Cayden Laughton, with the unseeded pair defeating the fourth-seeded Canadian team of Ilya Sherifali and Alden Yu 6-4, 6-2 in the final. Enya Hamilton and Autumn Xu won their fourth doubles title of year and their second in the past two weeks, with the top seeds beating Gwyneth Britton and Kingsley Wolf 6-3, 6-1 in the final.
The sole US boy to win a singles title last week was unseeded Macksimus Malhotra, who took the championship at the
J60 in the Dominican Republic. The 16-year-old from Massachusetts defeated No. 2 seed Thiago Silveira of Brazil 7-5, 6-2 in the final for his third career singles title.
After a two-week hiatus, the World Tennis Junior Circuit returns to the United States for the next five weeks, with two J60s, two J100s and one J200, all on green clay.
The first wild cards for both the 2027 Australian Open Junior Championships and the 2027 Roland Garros Junior Championships were determined this weekend.
In São Paulo Brazil, Brazilians Livas Damazio and Maria Eduarda Carbone won the Australian Open Junior Series South America playoffs. Damazio, 16, defeated Davi Sousa, also from Brazil, 6-2, 6-3 in the final and the 16-year-old Carbone beat 14-year-old Sofia Cuoco of Argentina 6-4, 6-3.
In Tokyo, 16-year-old Yui Komada of Japan defended her 2025 title to earn a wild card into the 2027 Roland Garros Junior Championships via the Asia Junior Series. Komada is No. 64 in the WT junior rankings, so it remains to be seen if she will need the wild card when acceptances come out in the spring, but she is assured of her place now after defeating Natsuki Irokawa of Japan 6–4, 3–6, 6–4 in the final.
Dongjae Kim of Korea, also 16, won the boys wild card, defeating Shintaro Ogaki of Japan 6–4, 1–6 ,6–2 in the final. Kim is No. 124 in the WT junior rankings right now, so he is more likely to need a wild card for entry in 2027.
A reminder that the World Tennis Tour Junior Finals begin Wednesday in Chengdu China, which will be tomorrow night here in the United States, Janae Preston, Jordan Lee and Keaton Hance are the Americans participating.
The groups for the first three days of play are here.
The WT media notes are here. The live streaming, which will feature commentary by Alex Gruskin of Cracked Racquets, will be available here.
0 comments:
Post a Comment