Boys & Girls: Hong Kong Open Junior Tennis Championships, hard - Grade 2 (Week 42)

DavidC · Tennis legend

Boys & Girls: Hong Kong Open Junior Tennis Championships, hard - Grade 2 (Week 42)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

A good day today with wins today for Jay Clarke, Alastair Gray, Ema Lazic and Georgie Axon. Finn Bass lost to the 5th seed. Luke plays tomorrow.

DavidC · Tennis legend

Boys R1 (L32)

(1) Jay Clarke d. (WC) Arthur Lincoln Chau (HKG) 6-1 6-2
Alastair Gray d. Shramay Dhawan (IND) 6-0 7-5
(5) Piotr Matuszewski (POL) d. Finn Bass 6-3 6-4
(8) Luke Hammond v (Q) Yeongseok Jeong (KOR)

Girls R1 (L32)

(5) Georgina Axon d. Skylar Wang (HKG) 6-1 6-0
(4) Ema Lazic d. Soomin Kim (KOR) 6-1 6-1

R2

Yungi He (CHN) v (5) Georgina Axon
Chisato Hayakawa (JPN) v (4) Ema Lazic

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Another nice day out in Hong Kong.

And I believe that out there in HK is Matt James - ex UK player, LTA coach, currently coaching/head of performance at Millfield, and kind enough to put good posts on here from South Africa in the summer when he was out there - very successfully - with a group of youngsters. So Matt - if you've got the time - would be great to hear from you ....

In the singles:

R1 Boys: (8) Luke Hammond def. (Q) Yeongseok Jeong (KOR) 6-2 1-6 6-4

R2 Girls:

(5) Georgina Axon def. Yungi He (CHN) 6-2 6-3

(4) Ema Lazic def. Chisato Hayakawa (JPN) 6-0 6-0

Lots of doubles wins too.

Mathewjames · Social player

Yep out here with Luke Hammond. Just in case the boss is reading I'm a performance coach at Millfield School....not head of performance.

Full house all round today I believe for Team GB. Wasn't looking great for Luke at 3-1 40-15 down in the third to a very talented youngster who beat Finn 2 weeks ago. Somehow pulled through in the heat after 2hrs 40.

Luke's playing doubles with an American lad this week...never easy when you haven't met your doubles partner before but they came through a scrappy 7-5 7-5 while Finn and Alistair Gray won in a match tie-break third.

Didn't see whether the girls won doubles today. I was too busy recovering mentally from Luke's rollercoaster singles. They are also with other coaches out here.

indiana · Tennis legend

Thanks Matthew for that. You jolly well should be head of performance

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Great to hear from you, Matt

And, if I've promoted you, well that's just fine too

Good luck and well done, to all the British youngsters out there (and, indeed, to all the youngsters fullstop).

Have fun !!!!

DavidC · Tennis legend

Having dealt with one finalist in the Sarawak G3 Luke now plays the other one (winner)

Boys R2

(1) Jay Clarke v Ye Cong Mo (CHN)
(4) Cing-Yang Meng (TPE) v Alastair Gray
(8) Luke Hammond v Anthony Jackie Tang (HKG)

Girls QF

(1) Lucie Kankova (CZE) v (5) Georgina Axon
Nidhi Surapaneni (IND) v (4) Ema Lazic

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Jay is through to the next round:

Boys R2

(1) Jay Clarke def. Ye Cong Mo (CHN) 6-2 6-2
Alastair Gray lost to (4) Cing-Yang Meng (TPE) 6-1 6-4
(8) Luke Hammond lost to Anthony Jackie Tang (HKG) 6-4 6-4

Luke H - and Legall (USA) - won their doubles, though. As did Jay, and partner. Both in the semis. Finn and Alastair lost.

Georgie and Ema also won their doubles and are through to the semi.

Mathewjames · Social player

Yeah mixed day overall for the Brits out here.

Clarke looks a level up from most people here. Will be interesting how he fares now against the better players.

Alistair Gray played some really good stuff....unfortunately for him it was from 6-1 5-1 down when he did it and couldn't quite level it up in the second when he had all the momentum.

Luke's winning streak comes to an unfortunate end. Too many mistakes and went 4-0 down in 15minutes. Couldn't get the forehand firing so was always going to be a big ask. Managed to win his doubles though and then we watched Venus Williams practice out here. Looks like she's hanging around to see if she can sneak into the WTA Finals in Singapore.

DavidC · Tennis legend

Jay's next opponent doesn't appear to have a particularly outstanding record, so hopefully the test of Jay's level will wait until the semis, where he is likely to be up against Alastair's conqueror. Nice bonus to have the chance to see Venus practice.

Boys QF

(1) Jay Clarke v Tsung-Hao Huang (TPE)

indiana · Tennis legend

All the best to Jay.

And as further Venus aside, real credit to her, I hadn't realised that she was as high as number 10 in the women's race.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

In the singles, it was three-setters for everyone, two going the right way, one not:

Quarterfinal Boys:

Jay CLARKE (GBR) [1] def. Tsung-Hao HUANG (TPE) 6-3 4-6 6-3

Quarterfinal Girls:

Lucie KANKOVA (CZE) [1] def. Georgina AXON (GBR) [5] 4-6 6-2 6-0

Ema LAZIC (GBR) [4] def. Nidhi SURAPANENI (IND) 3-6 6-1 6-3

And there's a Brit winner guaranteed in the boys' doubles:

Semifinal, Boys doubles:

Jay CLARKE (GBR) / Cing-Yang MENG (TPE) [1] def. Piotr MATUSZEWSKI (POL) / Maksymilian RAUPUK (POL) 7-6(5) 7-6(5)

Luke HAMMOND (GBR) / Jason LEGALL (USA) [3] def. Ching LAM (HKG) / Ming Chun Alan SOU (HKG) 6-3 6-3

And Ema and Georgie through to the final in the girls:

Semifinal, Girls doubles:

Georgina AXON (GBR) / Ema LAZIC (GBR) [2] def. Ruoyu CHEN (CHN) / Hanyu GUO (CHN) [3] 6-4 6-2

paulisi · Tennis legend

Jay's ranking will get a further boost next week as the semi final points in both singles and doubles will improve his ranking.

Similarly for Ema, who I didn't realise had made the top 100 and again the points will see a new junior CH

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

paulisi wrote:
Jay's ranking will get a further boost next week as the semi final points in both singles and doubles will improve his ranking.

Similarly for Ema, who I didn't realise had made the top 100 and again the points will see a new junior CH

Jay will only get 5 extra singles ranking points (so far) so it's hardly going to make much difference.

But it will cover the 45 that are due off start of Dec. so his ranking pre the Aussie Open is protected, at least, (and might go higher if he does better, obviously).

Ema's, though, will get a nice boost. That's 20 net extra points for her.

The 25% of the doubles will help both, but not significantly.