Unlike last year our under 14 boys team qualified for the World Junior Tennis Finals in Prostejov. The format here is that 16 nations are divided into 4 groups of 4 for round robin matches, before 2 knock-out matches
lol how did we not qualify last year with Edmund and Bambers...
They were stuck in a qualifying group on clay with Spain, who were underranked, because some of their best players play few Tennis Europe events.
GBR 2 Venezuela 1
Peter Ashley d. Christopher Goncalves 6-3 6-0 Joshua Sapwell d. Rafael Coutinho 7-5 6-2 Sapwell/Sendegeya lost to Coutinho/Goncalves 6-4 3-6 6-4
The other two nations in our group are very strong. Korea upset the second seeds USA today, and it is the Americans who we play tomorrow. Their team includes the much hyped Stefan Kozlov (winner of the Eddie Herr under 12 title last year, and finalist the year before) and Noah Rubin (finalist at les Petits As earlier this year)
Alexander Sendegeya lost to Noah Rubin 2-6 4-6 Peter Ashley beat Stefan Kozlov 6-4 6-3 Sapwell/Sendegeya lost to Kozlov/Rubin 3-6 6-3 2-6
A fine win from Peter but a 3-0 win will I think be required against Korea (who beat Venezuela 3-0) to win the group. That's a very tall order given the Korean number 1 Hyeon Chung is the highly rated winner of the Eddie Herr under 12s in 2008
-- Edited by DavidC on Tuesday 3rd of August 2010 06:26:34 PM
Remarkably we did beat Korea 3-0 (no scores yet) but the USA also won 3-0 so the group will be decided on matches (level with USA + ahead of Korea) then percentage of sets won
The closest group in the Finals went right down to the wire on Day 3. After an indifferent display so far, second seed USA knew it needed a 3-0 victory and to hope that Great Britain could not equal that result against Korea. Jordan Belga and Noah Rubin duly delivered two singles victories for the loss of just 3 games, before Stefan Kozlov then joined forces with Noah Rubin to win the doubles and give the USA a 3-0 victory.. In the other Group D tie, seventh seed Great Britain faced Korea. With all still to play for, the British trio of Peter Ashley, Joshua Sapwell and Alexander Sendegeya clinched all three matches, equalling the USAs result and sending both teams into a countback to see who topped the group. Having won a higher percentage of sets played, the British team continues to a semifinal against third seed Italy."
In Group A top seeds France were beaten 2 -1 by Russia and hence overtaken.
Semi finals are : Russia ( 8 ) vs Chile ( 5 ) Italy ( 3 ) vs GBR ( 7 )
Hmm first Kozlov then (i presume) Chung, this guy Ashley is picking up some scalps this week...course Sapwell might have beaten Chung but still impressive!
Hmm first Kozlov then (i presume) Chung, this guy Ashley is picking up some scalps this week...course Sapwell might have beaten Chung but still impressive!
It was Joshua with the big win - to put things in context Joshua is currently ranked 3 and Peter 9 in the race to the Tennis Europe under 14 end of season Masters, comparable with Luke and Kyle last year. However the Italians are ranked 1 and 4, were the singles finalists in the European championships plus beat Peter and Joshua in the doubles.
GBR 3 Korea 0
Peter Ashley d. Geon Ju Shin 6-2 7-6(2) Joshua Sapwell d. Hyeon Chung 6-1 6-2 Sapwell/Sendegeya d. Baek/Shin 6-4 6-4
This group is one of the few occasions where I guess playing on clay was an advantage to us - the US and Korean teams will have had less experience of playing on red clay.