Four Sites, More Raindrops, as Junior Orange Bowl Main Draw Begins

©Colette Lewis 2008--
Coral Gables, FL--

I started out the day at the boys 12s, where a few sprinkles appeared on the windshield as I drove into Tropical Park. After yesterday's unpredicted rain, I wasn't about to take Accuweather's 0% chance of rain for today too seriously, but at least this morning, there wasn't enough precipitation to halt play.

There were a couple of players I wanted to see: Noah Rubin of New York, who has been playing 14s nationally all year; and Christian Garay of Georgia, who was a finalist this year in Little Rock at the 12s Nationals, and has been playing a combination of 12s and 14s.


Rubin went on first and had no trouble with his opponent, Florian Krueger of Germany, who was the No. 1 seed from that country. Krueger was clutching his stomach throughout the first set, and at 6-1, 2-1, he retired.

Garay was playing unseeded Tim Portnov of Canada. I saw my share of moonballs in the 12s today (more on that from the girls 12s later), but not in that match, as Garay hit the ball with impressive power. Portnov didn't play badly, but couldn't put any sustained pressure on Garay, resulting in a 6-1, 6-1 loss.

When I arrived at the University of Miami, Robert Livi of the U.S. and Martins Podzus of Latvia were in a heated battle, but without scorekeeping devices, it was difficult to tell where exactly they were in the match. Livi won a game that led to a split, I gathered, and they took a ten-minute break, which Podzus didn't quite comprehend. Podzus, a big, strong player with a lot of power, ended up taking the match 6-3, 2-6, 6-2. Podzus's twin brother Janis also won his opening match.

It wasn't a good day for German seeds, as No. 4 seed Jannis Kahlke of Germany was defeated by Diego Pedraza of Columbia 6-4, 7-6(4). I had watched a few games of Harrison Richmond's 6-3, 6-3 win over Filip Obucina of Canada and a few of Reo Asami's with Rihard Rozac of Slovenia, but it began to rain, so I left hoping for drier courts a few miles to the north.

At the Biltmore Tennis Center, I managed to catch a few games of 16s Orange Bowl champion Chanelle Van Nguyen's first match in her attempt to claim a rare 16s - 14s double, but then the rain caught up with me, and I moved north six blocks to Salvadore Park, site of the girls 12s. The five new clay courts have improved the site immensely and the rain never came, so I spent the rest of the day watching some very, very long points and matches.

Julia O'Loughlin of the U.S. suffered a difficult loss to Irina Lidkovskaya of Russia. After dropping the first set 6-3, O'Loughlin evened the match, taking the second set 6-2, and had a 5-0 lead in the third. She was unable to win that last game, however, and Lidkovskaya, who sobbed regularly after losing a point, even as she was making her comeback, won the last seven games of the match.


I missed Brooke Austin, the U.S. No. 1 seed, who won her match quickly, but I did see Taylor Townsend, who finished second to Austin at both the Clays and Nationals in the 12s. The lefty from Georgia overpowered 10-year-old Mariya Shishkina of Kazakhstan 6-3, 6-1.

See the TennisLink site for draws and results.

Tags: junior tennis, Junior Orange Bowl, Noah Rubin, Christian Garay, Tropical Park, Colette Lewis

Unexpected Rain Halts Jr. Orange Bowl 14s Qualifying; Luca Corinteli & Nikko Madregallejo Win Spots on US Winter Europe Team: USTA's Junior Review

Unpredicted rain showers in the Coral Gables area this morning set back the Junior Orange Bowl boys 14s qualifying, which, like the girls 14s, had two matches scheduled for the final day. Another shower, which again wasn't in the forecast, hit the Biltmore, where the girls 14s are held, and the University of Miami, where the boys 14s matches take place this afternoon. So tomorrow will begin with the final qualifying matches for the 14s. The 12s, at Salvadore Park (girls) and Tropical Park (boys), had only one round to finish today, so they will begin main draw matches at 8 a.m.

For draws, see the TennisLink site.

I haven't received any further results from the wild card tournament for the women's Australian Open berth, but I did learn that Luca Corinteli and Nikko Madregallejo won spots on the boys team the USTA will take to Europe for Les Petits As and Teen Tennis. Two other players will be invited next week.

Sally Milano looks back at the top performances of 2008 in her "Year in Review: Juniors" at usta.com.

Tags: junior tennis, Junior Orange Bowl, Colette Lewis

2008 Eddie Herr Slide Show

Create a Free Slideshow

Tags: junior tennis, Eddie Herr International, Slideroll, Colette Lewis

US Women's Australian Open Wild Card Tournament Results; Andy Murray Looks in at the Junior Orange Bowl 12s

Just a quick post tonight. After 17 days of watching tennis, I took a day off today, to work on my Orange Bowl wrap for The Tennis Recruiting Network, coming Thursday, and to organize my photos for the Eddie Herr slide show, which I'll post tomorrow.

But tennis goes on, and at today's 12s Junior Orange Bowl qualifying at Tropical Park, world No. 4 Andy Murray caused quite a stir among the young boys still on site, when the Scot made a brief appearance and signed a few autographs. Murray is training in Florida to acclimate himself to the heat and humidity he'll be facing in Australia next month. It isn't known why Murray was at Tropical Park, but he won the Junior Orange Bowl 12s back in 1999, so maybe it was simply a stroll down memory lane.

The first round robin results are in from the Australian Open women's wild card tournament that began today in Boca Raton. In one group Christina McHale beat Mallory Cecil 6-0, 6-1 and Vania King beat CoCo Vandweghe 7-6, 6-1. In the other group, Madison Brengle, who won the wild card for 2007 and 2008, defeated Asia Muhammad 6-0, 6-3 and Gail Brodsky defeated Lauren Albanese 6-3, 6-3.

Tags: junior tennis, Andy Murray, Australian Open Wild Card Tournament, USTA, Colette Lewis

Bhambri Prevents U.S. Sweep in Orange Bowl Finals Sunday; Boserup Defeats McHale to Take Girls Title

©Colette Lewis 2008--
Key Biscayne, FL--

The cloudy skies that persisted over Crandon Park on Sunday didn't dispel the sunny mood created by two weeks of American junior success in major tournaments, capped by wins in three of the four titles contested on Sunday at the Dunlop Orange Bowl. In total, six of the eight championships won here went to U.S. players, after the previous week had seen Americans take four of the eight singles titles at the Eddie Herr International.

Sixteen-year-old Yuki Bhambri of India prevented a U.S. singles sweep, handing unseeded Jarmere Jenkins of College Park, Ga. a 6-1, 6-3 defeat. Bhambri, the No. 2 seed, displayed his stylish game from the outset, and Jenkins struggled with his backhand throughout the match.

"Jarmere is an attacking player, he likes to come to the net a lot, get on you very quickly," the Bollettieri-trained Bhambri said. "He was missing at the start, he was a bit nervous, and started to lose confidence."

Jenkins gave Bhambri credit for directing his attack to his backhand, and for his poise.

"He's younger than me, but he handled it better," Jenkins said. "A lot of things didn't go my way. I tried to do (backhand) slices down the line, but my slice wasn't going today. It was good for him, he saw that weakness and kept hammering it."

Bhambri said that it wasn't so much the weakness of the Jenkins backhand as the strength of his forehand that had him searching for errors from that side.

"Every time I went to the forehand I would get passed, he'd hit a winner, so that was the only option I had," Bhambri said.

Not known for his strong serving, Bhambri wasn't broken throughout the match, and rarely faced a break point. He often played behind the ultra-quick Jenkins, who seldom anticipated the Bhambri patterns and found himself regularly on the defensive. Jenkins's first serve percentage was undoubtedly quite low too, and in the match's final game, when he was broken for the fourth time, he could be heard saying "one first serve would help."

With the Orange Bowl championship, Bhambri earned not only a wild card into the qualifying of the Sony Ericsson tournament next spring, but the distinction of being the first Indian player to win a 16s or 18s Orange Bowl singles championship.

"It's a big achievement," said Bhambri, who also won the Grade A Osaka Cup in October. "It's the biggest tournament in the states after the U.S. Open, so I feel very proud of myself."

Back on Friday, it was already a foregone conclusion that a U.S. girl would win the title; on Sunday wild cards Julia Boserup and Christina McHale battled for that honor, with Boserup coming out on top 6-4, 2-6, 6-3.

Boserup and McHale train together often at the USTA's High Performance Center at Boca Raton, so there wasn't much to be figured out in the early stages of match. Instead, both girls, who showed no signs of nervousness, went right to their strengths, and in the opening set, it was Boserup's ground strokes that gave her the edge.

Hitting a extremely deep and penetrating ball, Boserup hit winner after winner, which is difficult to do against a defender as able as McHale. Serving for the first set at 5-3, Boserup was broken after holding three set points, but there was no evidence of any frustration, nor did she get tentative in the next game, when she forced a couple of errors from McHale on her way to securing the set.

Even though McHale won the second set with relative ease, the 16-year-old from New Jersey wasn't happy with her approach.

"I wasn't executing my game plan very well," said McHale, who had beaten Boserup handily in their last meeting, in a July Pro Circuit event. "She loves the ball right in her strike zone, so I was going to try to mix it up, but I wasn't able to do that."

Boserup opened the final set with more controlled aggression, standing near the baseline and ripping forehands and backhands with equal force. Down 3-0, McHale had a chance to get the break back when Boserup committed three errors to open her third service game, but five points later, the lead was 4-1, and McHale's chance was gone.

Knowing McHale's reputation for tenacity, the 17-year-old Boserup didn't let up.

"I knew after I won the first set I just had to throw that away, because it all starts in the second set," said Boserup, who grew up in Los Angeles. "Christina does a great job of fighting back; she does that in all her matches, even if she loses the first set, so I knew I had to buckle down for the third and find a way to win it."

Boserup's body language was positive as she closed out the first ITF win of her junior career, and the celebration was no more than a couple of fist pumps, the racquet staying in her hand.

"I don't think it's even sunk in yet that I've won," Boserup said. "I tried to think every round was the same, preparing for it with my game plan and sticking to my routines. I just tried to think of it as any other match and not get too worked up about it."

One thing Boserup was adamant about was the positive direction of U.S. tennis.

"They've been giving Americans a very hard time about not having up-and-comers, but I think we've all been working very hard and we've proven ourselves this tournament--almost all Americans in the final rounds," said Boserup, who disposed of four of her compatriots in her last four matches. "It's something we should all be very proud of."


The girls doubles final featured four of the U.S. contingent that made such an impression during this Florida junior swing, and it was Lauren Embree and Asia Muhammad that won the battle of unseeded American teams, 6-3, 6-2 over Brooke Bolender and Beatrice Capra.

"I think we played the best we played all tournament," said Embree. "It was pretty windy, so we didn't want to make too many errors, we just wanted to be really aggressive today," said Muhammad, adding, "we play our best when we're really aggressive and not making mistakes."

Bolender and Capra, who are frequent partners and have won an ITF junior event and a Pro Circuit event this year, weren't happy with their play.

"We didn't play as consistent as we have been," said Bolender, 16. "We were more up and down where they were very consistent and at a high level. We weren't able to keep up today."

Embree and Muhammad haven't played together recently but they dominated the Orange Bowl this week, needing only one match tiebreaker to advance in the no-ad, match-tiebreaker-in-lieu-of-a-third-set format played now in ITF Grade A and Grade 1 tournaments.



The boys doubles champions are Devin Britton his partner Jenkins, who avoided a second loss to the singles winner on Sunday when the Americans beat top seeds Bhambri and Ohio's Chase Buchanan 7-6(7), 6-2.

With Buchanan serving for the first set at 5-4, Britton and Jenkins, who also won the Eddie Herr last Sunday, picked up their return games.

"At 30-all Jarmere hit a pretty big backhand return and I followed it up with a big forehand return and we broke back. We picked up a lot of momentum from that," said Britton.

"In the first set I was kind of depressed that I lost to this guy," said Jenkins, gesturing toward Bhambri. "In the second set, I just kind of forgot about it, but I didn't want to lose to another American in the final."

"We couldn't let Yuki take both titles," Britton chimed in.

For complete results, see the Dunlop Orange Bowl page at usta.com.

Tags: junior tennis, Dunlop Orange Bowl, Yuki Bhambri, Julia Boserup, Asia Muhammad, Lauren Embree, Jarmere Jenkins, Devin Britton, Colette Lewis

Kudla and Van Nguyen Win Orange Bowl 16s Championships; Jenkins Meets Bhambri and Boserup Faces McHale for 18s Titles Sunday

©Colette Lewis 2008--
Key Biscayne, FL--

India's Yuki Bhambri must feel as if he's somehow landed in the midst of a USTA National Championship this week at the Dunlop Orange Bowl. In match after match at Crandon Park, American players have dominated, leaving it up to the 16-year-old from India to keep the U.S. from sweeping all four Orange Bowl singles titles.

The No. 2 seeded Bhambri, a 6-3, 4-6, 6-1 winner over No. 4 seed Cedrik-Marcel Stebe of Germany, will play unseeded Jarmere Jenkins of College Park, Ga., who erased some unpleasant memories from the 2007 Orange Bowl with a 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 win over Eddie Herr champion Alex Domijan.

Jenkins was up 5-2 in the third set against U.S. Open Junior champion Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania last year when severe cramping prevented him from finishing the match. Down a set to Domijan on the same court where his body had failed him last year, Jenkins kept himself focused on the task at hand, ending Domijan's ITF junior winning streak at 16 on a mostly cloudy, cool and breezy day.

"I wasn't really thinking about what happened last year," said the 18-year-old right-hander. "I was just taking this match, and living in the present."

Failing to break Domijan in the first set, Jenkins opened the second with a break of the 6-foot-6 Floridian, but his advantage didn't last. But at 4-4, Jenkins got his second break and finished off the set. In the third, Jenkins again broke Domijan immediately, held twice and broke again, taking a 4-1 lead. Domijan took one break back, but committed a few more unforced errors than he had during his recent run, and Jenkins stepped to the service line with a 5-4 lead. After a service winner, a backhand shank error and a forehand winner, Jenkins led 30-15. Domijan, who rarely reacts to any error, dropped his racquet in disbelief when he hit a wild backhand on the next point, giving Jenkins two match points. Jenkins refused to play it safe, pounding a forehand long on his first opportunity, but a first serve and a perfectly executed forehand volley on the next one put him in the final.

"No matter what the score is you have to play the same," said Jenkins, who has recently begun working with coach Steve Koon. "That volley felt sick, especially when he just didn't go for it, it was a good feeling."

The girls 18s title will be won by an unseeded American wild card, just like the last Grade A ITF junior event held in the United States, the U.S. Open Junior championships, won by CoCo Vandeweghe. Julia Boserup reached her first major junior final by ousting Eddie Herr champion and No. 11 seed Lauren Embree 7-5, 6-1, a result the Californian, who now trains at the USTA High Performance Center in Boca Raton, was very happy with.

"It was a tough match from the start," said Boserup, 17. "Lauren gets so many balls back and she's had some great results lately, so it took a lot of effort on my part. I wasn't feeling too well in the first set--I was down 3-5 and somehow found my range a little bit better with my shots, and I think that made the difference. I stayed with my game plan, to be aggressive and finish off the points."

Embree can retrieve with the best of them, and Boserup felt the pressure of that skill.

"She played amazing, really. I have so much respect for Lauren, she played a great match, and I'm happy to come out with a win."

Across the net from Boserup on Sunday will be 16-year-old Christina McHale, who won a seesaw battle with yet another American wild card, Sloane Stephens, 5-7, 6-1, 7-5. McHale, who splits her training between the High Performance Center in Boca Raton and her home in New Jersey, had a 4-1 lead in the first set, but dropped six of the next seven games.

"I tensed up a bit and she took advantage of that," said McHale, who beat Boserup 6-1, 6-1 in a Allentown, Pa. $50,000 Pro Circuit qualifying match this summer. "We had really close games and I just couldn't seem to get any of them. It was a little frustrating."

McHale came back to dominate the second set, taking a 5-0 lead. She fell behind 3-0 in the third set, but broke Stephens at 3-2. At 5-5, Stephens backhand began to falter and three errors off that side were too much for the 15-year-old Floridian to overcome.

"At the start of the third set she was just blasting forehands, so I tried to go a little bit more to her backhand at the end," McHale said.

Serving for the match at 6-5, McHale admitted she was nervous, but told herself to put everything into it.

"Against her, you're not going to get many chances," McHale said.

McHale needed three, and also saved one break point that would have evened the match. But Stephens was unable to avoid unforced errors, and the last one, a forehand long and wide, gave McHale the match.



While the McHale - Stephens battle raged on court 2, another roller coaster of a contest was being waged on stadium court between girls 16s finalists Madison Keys and Chanelle Van Nguyen. The unseeded Van Nguyen had run out to a 6-3, 5-2 lead over the No. 3 seed, but she was unable to convert two match points in that set, one serving at 5-2 and one with Keys serving at 5-3. Both times Keys crushed a forehand winner, and a seemingly demoralized Van Nguyen lost five straight games, giving Keys new life.

The start of the third set began as the previous two had, with Van Nguyen taking an early lead. But again serving for the match at 5-2, again Van Nguyen faltered, this time not reaching a match point. At 5-3, Keys saved her third match point with an overhead and held to put the pressure on her 14-year-old opponent. Van Nguyen didn't play tentatively this time, and took a 40-30 lead, but Keys brushed off match point No. 4 with a volley winner. Van Nguyen missed a volley, letting out a scream of frustration on match point No. 5, but she stayed aggressive, served well, and hit two forehand winners in addition to one off the backhand side to save two break points and arrive again at match point. On her sixth, Van Nguyen wasn't required to hit another winner, when Keys's forehand caught the net, ending the two-and-a-half-hour match.

"I learned a lot from that," Van Nguyen said of her nervous play as she attempted to close out the match in the second set. "I tried to hit the ball--I couldn't wait for her to miss, and the last match point I had, I just wanted to go for it, be aggressive."

For the 13-year-old Keys, who won the 12s Junior Orange Bowl last year, the loss was a wrenching one.

"It's not really my personality to stop, calm down, try to work the point," said Keys, as a tear rolled down her cheek. "When I get my shot, I like to go for it. Chanelle played really well, and I just started slow, so maybe next time."

In the boys 16s final, No. 1 seed Denis Kudla defeated No. 12 seed Mitchell Frank 6-0, 6-2. Frank had a 2-0 lead in the second set, but Kudla reeled off six straight games for the second time to take the title.

"He was starting to miss a few balls that he wasn't missing in the first set," Frank said of the first two games of the second set. "But then he kind of got his rhythm back and just started hitting those penetrating ground strokes that just gave me a ton of problems. He deserved it, he came up with the shots on the big points."

Kudla, who like Frank, trains at the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Md., accomplished his objective of winning a tournament when he was expected to.

"The point of playing this was to deal with the pressure, because I knew I would be the No. 1 seed," said the 16-year-old from Virginia. "At first I was almost whining over it, saying I wanted to play 18s, I want to get some points, but I'm glad I decided to play with pressure. I think I handled it pretty well, and it looks like I achieved my goal."

Kudla was also the top seed in the 16s doubles, with another JTCC player, Junior Ore, but they fell to No. 4 seeds Diego Acosta and Robert Quiroz of Ecuador 6-3, 6-2.

The girls 16s doubles final was not played due to the illness of Emi Mutaguchi of Japan. The unseeded team of Lauren Herring and Grace Min received a walkover when Mutaguchi and her partner Marianne Jodoin of Canada, the No. 2 seeds, could not take the court.



The 18s doubles finalists were decided on Saturday, and again the U.S. players were the story. In the girls doubles final, two unseeded U.S. teams will vie for the title. Lauren Embree and Asia Muhammad earned their berth with a 7-5, 6-4 victory over the unseeded Polish team of Paula Kania and Magda Linette, and will face Brooke Bolender and Beatrice Capra, who sent top seeds Ana Bogdan of Romania and Kristina Mladenovic of France packing 6-2, 2-6, 10-7.

The boys 18s finals will feature No. 7 seeds Devin Britton and Jenkins of the U.S. against top seeds Chase Buchanan of the U.S. and Bhambri. Britton and Jenkins prevailed in a bizarre semifinal match with unseeded Pierre-Hughes Herbert of France and Stanislav Poplavskyy of Ukraine 4-6, 7-6(6), 10-3. A broken ball in the second set tiebreaker, a tossed racquet hitting a line umpire that led to a warning which led to an audible obscenity which led to a point penalty against Poplavskyy to start the match tiebreaker, a call for a trainer at 2-1 in the match tiebreaker by Herbert and a return by Poplavskyy accidentally hitting the chair umpire a few points later, made for a strange ending, to say the least.

Bhambri and Buchanan took a 3-6, 6-4 10-8 decision from No. 3 seeds Shuichi Sekiguchi of Japan and Tsung-Hua Yang of Chinese Taipei, hanging on after their 8-1 lead in the match tiebreaker nearly disappeared.

For complete results, visit the Dunlop Orange Bowl page at usta.com.

Tags: junior tennis, Dunlop Orange Bowl, Denis Kudla, Chanelle Van Nguyen, Lauren Herring, Grace Min, Colette Lewis