This is traditionally one of the strongest under 14 events, leading up to Les Petits As. This year we have a number of highly seeded players, including Derrick Chen (top seed in the boys and currently ranked 5 in Tennis Europe) and Louis Davey (sixth seed. but only a 2004). On the girls side Kylie Bilchev is one of two top 10 ranked Brits (the other, Holly Fischer, is not taking part in the January under 14 events) and is seeded 2 with Amelia Bissett as 4th seed. Round 1 was completed today, with all the seeds having byes.
Live scoring is available at http://www.tennisticker.de/gbr/sb.html?tournid=2943 and the drawsheets are at http://te.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/draws.aspx?id=0CDDF77F-1B9B-444C-93B4-34A092C34103
A mixed day - Derrick and Louis made early exits but Will Gray upset the third seed, while in the girls event Kylie and Amelia were comfortable winners
The quarter-final stage has been reached with 2 Brits in both singles; William Nolan and Jack Pinnington Jones in the boys plus Amelia Bissett and Kylie Bilchev in the girls. Kylie comes up against American Charlotte Owensby, who lost to Holly Fischer in the 2015 Auray under 12 semis
I was quite impressed with Amelia when I saw her play the grade 5 at Wirral. I thought she had a little more in her game compared to Tianna and the likes of Holly Staff.
Amelia had a battle today, and in the end was just edged out 2-6 6-4 6-4. The USA has brought over a strong contingent, and they have 7 of the 8 semifinalists. However the one non-American is Kylie who managed to ease her way past Charlotte Owensby 5-7 6-3 6-3. The American she plays in the semis Alexandra Yepifanova (a tall ex-Russian) has ominously lost no more than 3 games in any match. Both boys lost in straights.
Yes, the Americans make a big thing of these U14 European events. It's very prestigious to be selected for the 'team'. I believe they do some kind of play-off event for some of the places. It usually is most of their strongest players in that age-group.
-- Edited by The Optimist on Wednesday 18th of January 2017 07:20:51 PM
Kylie gave Alexandra much more of a match than her previous opponent, but went down eventually 6-2 7-6(7) However there was some joy in doubles, where Joel Pierleoni and Jack Pinnington Jones won the boys' title
Congratulations to the boys doubles champions! And not bad from Ms Bilchev, who managed to take more games from her victorious opponent than all of said opponent's previous opponents combined.
For what it's worth, the Leo Borg whom William Nolan beat in the 1st round is, in fact, Bjorn Borg's son. And the Martin Damm who is in the final - having avoided all British players on his route there - is Martin Damm's son.
