Girls: Enka Gallipoli Cup, Turkey - Grade 4 (Week 19)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Girls: Enka Gallipoli Cup, Turkey - Grade 4 (Week 19)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Victories in the singles for both British girls:

QF
Mirabelle Njoze (7) d. Valeriya Zeleva (RUS) : 6-4, 7-5

Jasmine Amber Asghar (2) d. Jovana Knezevic (CYP) : 6-4, 3-6, 6-2

SF
Mirabelle v. Talya Zandverg (ISR)

Jasmine v. Petia Arshinkova (BUL)

Both girls lost their respective doubles SF.

Mervatron · Masters Series Champion

Hoping for an all british final

Mirabelle is doing great these past few months

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Well, you got half your wish (which is not bad in life) . . .

SF

Mirabelle Njoze beat Talya Zandberg 6-1, 6-3

Jasmine AmberAsghar lost to Petia Arshinkova 6-1, 6-3

DavidC · Tennis legend

Mirabelle's first junior ITF final. She's not a player I know much about, so others in the same position may be interested in the profile which Tennis First posted earlier in the year:

"Mirabelle is based in the South of France in an exclusive private academy of selected elite players. The highlight of the 2012 season was winning the French under 16 National tournament in November with the loss of just 7 games in 5 matches. Even more important is doing so playing aggressive offensive tennis (her development objective). Mirabelle's tournament programme moving forward includes Circuit National des Grand Tournois (CNGT) in France (similar to British Tour but of a higher standard) ; Junior ITF (mostly grade 2 and higher) and the Women ITF circuit. Her aim is to make rapid progress to the WTA tour within the next 3 years."

DF · Tennis legend

Impressive aims

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

That was really interesting, David.

I saw Mirabelle play once last year and was very impressed - she has a modern, athletic, aggressive game.
She's also got herself well sorted out in terms of the structure she has in place.

Her domestic results sheet for this year (from November onwards) - senior and junior combined - has 22 victories for 3 defeats, with 7 of the victories against better ranked players.

She's a bit off the best French '1997's but not far (the Tennis First post implies she won 'the' national under 16s championship whereas it was 'a' national under 16s competition) but I think she's going to make a lot of progress.

Definitely one to watch for the future.

LordBrownof · Futures level

Yes, not long 16 and her last loss was a very close encounter with a girl ranked 17.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Yep, Mirabelle's a great name.
Supposedly, it means 'of incredible beauty', from the Latin. However, for me, it's the word, of course, for those little yellow plums. Which is, at least, 100 times better than a ten year-old girl I know who is champion of her département who is called 'Prune' - yes, you read it right, her name is actually Prune.

NB I loved the article you found - talk about damning with faint praise - the title was won by Mirabelle who played 'well' (begrudgingly) but trains in France (emphasise that bit) and of course she only won because the number one seed lost because she had an injured foot. Yeah, right . . .

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Saturday 11th of May 2013 08:52:03 PM

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Mirabelle made short and sweet work of her opponent today:

Final:

Mirabelle Njoze def. Petia Arshinkova 6-0, 6-1

Nice of her to let the other girl win a game . . .

Mervatron · Masters Series Champion

Great stuff.

Is she likely to keep her british status or switch to play for France?

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I don't know, Mervaton. I think she's great but I really don't know much about her family situation - I can't even find out where she was born.

From what I can tell, she's been at the academy for a year or two but has been living in France for a lot longer because she has a full domestic results sheet for the last four years (records only go back 4 years).
I'd have thought, however, that if she were eligible to be French now (and wanted to be), then she would do so right now. Because as a French player she'd be eligible to go to one of the excellent state academies which are, effectively, free. The private ones are quite expensive and used mainly by either foreign kids or french kids who are just short of the grade and aren't selected for the state academies.

Under French law, at the age of 18, if you're living in France and if you've been living in France for 5 years between the ages of 11 and 18, you have the right to become French. But I don't see how that would really help her, I think she'd do it now if she wanted to (and could).

Net, net, I'm not much help, sorry, but I'm going to look into it, I'm interested too.

steven · Tennis legend

They call her "Britannique" & "Anglaise" in this FFT report of that national 16U title she won, which doesn't mean she won't switch but does mean they don't already consider her effectively French!

http://ww2.ti.fft.fr/Event.asp?CodeEvent=1112151859

I see she handed out a thrashing in that Final too!

There's also a thread on GBTG where people say their daughters played against her in GB junior tournaments a few years ago, so it looks like the family started out in the UK and moved to France. With a name like Mirabelle, it wouldn't be a surprise if one of her parents was French!

steven · Tennis legend

Yes, the bit about the number one seed was particularly grudging, wasn't it

Seems possible re. her parents. On her Facebook pic, she seems to be rocking the Yannick Noah look as well, so maybe he's her hero (maybe she's a bit young to remember him as a tennis player, though he's well-known in France for other reasons now)

"Tarte aux mirabelles" was how I first came across that word/name too! A few of the current crop of young French players have distinctive names - not to mention the sisters called Victoire and Gloire, though they originate from Madagascar (and doubtless some rather ambituous parents), I think.

Still, the heroine of one of the first French novels I read was called "Pomme" (i.e. Apple) and I think that was written in the 1970s, a long time before I read it, so maybe calling girls after fruit has been a French habit for a while!

DavidC · Tennis legend

Very impressive scoreline for her first final. I can confirm after a bit of research that Mirabelle was born in England. Her mother has a name of Cameroonian origin. Thanks for the FFT article link.