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

Mathewjames · Social player

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

DavidC · Tennis legend

As anticipated Jay plays his doubles partner. Three of the top four seeds made it through in both draws, with Luke's conqueror the male interloper. Ema's opponent has a WTA ranking of 623 after winning back to back $10K events this summer. She lost to Emily Arbuthnott at Roland Garros.

Boys SF

(1) Jay Clarke v (4) Cing-Yang Meng (TPE)

Doubles F

(1) Clarke/Meng (GBR/TPE) v (3) Hammond/Legall (GBR/USA)

Girls SF

(4) Ema Lazic v (2) Anastasia Gasanova (RUS)

Doubles F

(1) Gasanova/Kankova (RUS/CZE) v (2) Axon/Lazic

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

results today:

Boys Doubles Final

Jay CLARKE (GBR) / Cing-Yang MENG (TPE) [1] def. Luke HAMMOND (GBR) / Jason LEGALL (USA) [3] 6-4 7-6(3)

Congrats to Jay

and to Luke, as runner-up - looks like a good match

Girls DOubles Final

Anastasia GASANOVA (RUS) / Lucie KANKOVA (CZE) [1] def. Georgina AXON (GBR) / Ema LAZIC (GBR) [2] 6-3 3-6 [10-4]

Very close but not to be for the girls.

Boys Singles Semifinal

Jay CLARKE (GBR) [1] def. Cing-Yang MENG (TPE) [4] 6-2 6-2

Excellent looking score for Jay. New points. Plays Popyrin, the Aussie 3rd seed, in the final, a year younger but obviously in very good form (lost to Ruud (the eventual champion), 5-7 in the third, at the Grade A event in Japan).

Girls Singles Semifinal

Anastasia GASANOVA (RUS) [2] def. Ema LAZIC (GBR) [4] 6-3 6-1

Great week for Ema. Should be up to JWR 80 or so (before the 1997s all drop out). And she's only three months older than Katie Swan. They're obviously not quite in the same top drawer but Ema's practically the same age, and moving forward very encouragingly.

Mathewjames · Social player

Not much to add really unless you want to hear about our afternoon in Hong Kong getting away from the tennis scene for a few hours!!

Doubles was obviously close....Luke and Jason up 3-1 both sets but just couldn't consolidate the break. As they say it's not a break until you hold.

Over to South Korea tomorrow for another G2 although looks to be very strong.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Oh, but we DO want to hear about what you all got up to in Hong Kong in your off-time, we do !

BUT will quite understand if you value a bit of privacy

Good luck to you in South Korea.

It seems to me that it's a big jump up for Luke, to Grade 2 from the Grade 4s he was playing in South Africa. And he doesn't seem to have played that many tournaments, all told. So well done to him, and you - it looks like a good week and hope it was fun.

BeefyDeedz · Pro player

That looks like a rather good win for Jay. I don't know much about him so it'll be interesting to see what he can pull out of the bag in the next few years.

DavidC · Tennis legend

Congratulations to Jay, making 3/3 in G2 finals smile

Boys Final

(1) Jay Clarke d. (3) Alexei Popyrin (AUS) 6-4 7-5

Ernie · Junior player

Congrats to Jay today on beating Alexei Popyrin 6-4 7-5 in the final.

Not the strongest grade 2, but he got the job done! So hats off to him.

I'll watch with interest how Jay fares in the slams where he'll face much stronger opponents, I genuinely hope he's ready. It would have been nice to see his sudden rise in the rankings come from the more challenging European tournaments.

tourist101 · Improver

Valid point Ernie, but I guess the bigger picture is that Clarke is now in the slams and the only Brit boy to be flying the flag. His scheduling seems shrewd and maybe the rest of us could take a leaf out of his book... Never the less, a fantastic achievement.. I cannot remember the last time we had a Brit win 3 G2's within the space of 2 months (whilst being a year young!!) I wouldn't say the tournaments Clarke has competed in were weaker, in fact the tournaments in Egypt had some promising spanish juniors in them, (Soto and Cosano), who just beat fellow Brit, Stewart 2 and 1. There a few others Brits on the cusp of Grandslams.. Moore and Storrie in particular and a few stand out 99s ... Davies (finalist in Finland this week) Bass and Molloy, will hopefully see all these boys reaching their potential in the coming year. Good luck to Jay in his next endeavours.

Ernie · Junior player

I couldn't agree more, your absolutely right it is a fantastic achievement, its brilliant to have a Brit featuring in the top 50 and as I said I genuinely wish Jay well. The other promising Brits you mentioned with the exception of Bass, were all playing in Europe and comparing the draws you can clearly see that the European tournaments are stronger. The Osaka grade A for instantance was comparable to the European grade 2, the grade 2 to a European grade 3/4 in which Moore did well in reaching the semis and losing to the Spanish Davis Cup No. 1. My point is I'm concerned that whilst being shrewd with your schedule and increasing your ranking you avoid (maybe not intentionally) the stronger players, and I think that's dangerous, you need to mix it up and be confident you can win at all levels. Moore and Storrie are doing exactly that and have beaten players ranked in the top 10 in the process, and as you say are on the cusp! As for our 99's they haven't shown through yet (2 years young!) not that age really matters as there are 6 X 99's and 1 X 2000 in the top 50 at present, but hopefully they'll come through next year.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

There is a lot to be said for being shrewd in your scheduling, you have to be in it to win it there is no point being on the cusp and missing out. So point taken but surely an acceptable means to an end.

Agreed next years slams will be more testing but winning consistently and playing at a level above that of the other competitors suggests Jay is ready to meet that challenge.

Some great wins last year by some of the other 98ers who hopefully will be able to build on those and get to a level where they qualify for slams. It is great to have a group with some potential after a few barren years, will watch them all with interest.

tourist101 · Improver

I actually disagree Ernie, Osaka's top 4 seeds were top 15, top 8 were inside top 50 and 9-16 were inside the top 100. Not sure how this could be called weak?! Spain, (only European G2), had 3 top 100, (none inside 50) and a few very good Spanish juniors, who unfortunately drew our Brit boys! I think Clarke's consistent run of form in the last couple of months is down to more than chasing points... Will watch his Grandslam progress with interest in the next coming year. I didn't know Moore had a win over a top 10 player... Who was that?

Ernie · Junior player

Sorry my mistake, Moore beat Patrik Niklas-Salminen top 20 player and semi finalist at Wimbledon, Storrie beat top 10 players Chung and De Minaur.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not being negative, I can see Jay is having a good run of form, and if he'd have played a couple stronger tournaments he may have won them, and played boys in the top 100 on route, which he hasn't done in recent months. I just think it would have given him greater confidence and better prepared him for the much higher level Slams.

Anyway I wish Jay and all the Brits well and will continue to watch with interest.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

"Jay was Victorious in Victoria Park! Against Popyrin4n5 #No1InBritain #DoingItOnOurOwn #IDidItMyWay #GameOfTheFuture"

I guess one can see from the hashtags that Jay and the Clarke family are not going to be beholden to the LTA and have a point to make .....

indiana · Tennis legend

Hmm ...