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Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Junior Orange Bowl Begins Wednesday; USTA Selects Teams for U14 European Trip; Kecmanovic, Potapova Officially ITF World Junior Champions; Mmoh Features; Schnur Wins Tallahassee Futures

Final round of qualifying Tuesday at B12s at Salvadore Park
Qualifying was completed on schedule today at the Junior Orange Bowl, despite Sunday's rain and main draw matches begin tomorrow at four sites in the Miami area.

The girls 12s are being played at the Biltmore Tennis Center after that facility reopened after undergoing renovations.

Cori Gauff, the 12-year-old who reached the quarterfinals of the Eddie Herr 16s this year and has held her own in USTA 18s competition, is playing the 12s and is the number 2 seed. Katja Wiersholm, who won the 12s Clay Courts and Nationals this year, is seeded No. 6. The girls 12s is a 128 draw.

G12s Top 8 Seeds:
1. Katerina Dimitrova (BUL)
2. Cori Gauff(USA)
3. Vivan Ovrootsky (USA)
4. Katrina Scott (USA)
5. Dasha Plekhanova (CAN)
6. Katja Wiersholm (USA)
7. Robin Montgomery (USA)
8. Tatiana Muzykantskaya (RUS)

The girls 14s seeds feature Eddie Herr 16s finalist Victoria Hu and Eddie Herr 14s champion Gianna Pielet.  Alexa Noel, whose ITF ranking of 352 is among the best in the  128-player draw, is not seeded.  The girls are playing at the University of Miami again this year.

G14s Top 8 Seeds:
1. Noa Krznaric (CRO)
2. Holly Fischer (GBR)
3. Qinwen Zheng (CHN)
4. Victoria Hu (USA)
5. Gianni Pielet (USA)
6. Jimar Gerald (CHI)
7. Emma Raducanu (GBR)
8. Ana Geller (ARG)

The boys 12s, a 128 draw, includes Eddie Herr champion Gunuk Kang of Korea, who is seeded No. 9. The boys play on Har-Tru at Salvadore Park. The other three divisions are played on hard courts.

B12s Top 8 Seeds:
1. Dino Prizmic (CRO)
2. Haesun Lee (KOR)
3. Victor Lilov (USA)
4. William Jansen (GBR)
5. Evan Wen (USA)
6. Jose Maciel Neto (BRA)
7. Lun Obrul (SLO)
8. Patrick Brady (THA)

The boys 14s, which is a 256 draw, will be played on Crandon Park on Key Biscayne through the round of 16 and then will move to the University of Miami. Eddie Herr champion Zane Khan is the No. 5 seed, with Eddie Herr finalist Bu Yunchaokete the top seed.

B14s Top 8 Seeds:
1. Bu Yunchaokete (CHN)
2. Alex Lee (USA)
3. Alexander Gaponenko (ISR)
4. Santiago de la Fuente (ARG)
5. Zane Khan (USA)
6. Han-Chih Lin (TPE)
7. Daiki Yoshimura (JPN)
8. Nicholas-Davis Ionel (ROU)

Complete draws can be found at the TennisLink site.

The USTA held its tryouts for the 2017 January trip to Bolton England and Tarbes France last month at Boca Raton. National Coach Jon Glover will take the following boys to the Nike International and Les Petits As:
Toby Kodat
Aidan Mayo
Martin Damm
Alexander Bernard

National Coach Maureen Diaz's team for those two major U14 international tournaments consists of:
Alexandra Yepifanova
Cori Gauff
Elvina Kalieva
Charlotte Owensby

The ITF officially announced Miomir Kecmanovic of Serbia and Anastasia Potapova of Russia as 2016 World Junior Champions. Kecmanovic is the first Serbian named the year-end junior champion. Kecmanovic and Potapova will be honored at the ITF dinner held June 6, 2017 in Paris.

Michael Mmoh, who was often in afterthought earlier this year when talk turned to the young American men poised to rise in the ATP rankings, has begun getting more attention after winning his first Challenger title last month and the USTA's Australian Open wild card.
ESPN's Greg Garber published this article about him last week, and Sports Illustrated conducted an interview with Mmoh which appeared online this week.  It appears the elbow injury sustained in his second round match with Stefan Kozlov, which resulted in Mmoh withdrawing from the Champaign Challenger, is not as serious as first feared and he is preparing for the Australian Open next month.

Former University of North Carolina star Brayden Schnur, who I spoke with briefly in Bradenton as he got in a final practice with his longtime coach, won last week's final USTA Pro Circuit event, a $25,000 Futures in Tallahassee Florida. The eighth-seeded Schnur, who left North Carolina this spring after his junior year, beat University of Virginia senior JC Aragone, a qualifier, 7-5, 3-6, 6-2 in the final.

The doubles title went to No. 4 seeds Nathaniel Lammons (SMU) and Robert Galloway(Wofford), who beat current Florida State players Aziz Dougaz and Guy Iradukunda, an unseeded wild card team, 6-4, 5-7, 10-8.  For more on the singles final, see Bobby Knight's post at College Tennis Today.

2 comments:

Garrett said...

Do you have any idea can you find old drawsheets from the Orange Bowl, say circa-1980? Thanks.

Option said...


There was a magazine published back then called College and Junior Tennis that carried Orange Bowl draw sheets along with many others. Hard to find but they are out there, I have a bunch from that era.