The traditional Australian Open warm-up event features our 3 grand slam entrants. Jay takes on his Wimbledon doubles partner, who is one of the highest ranked non-seeds.
A number of seeds lost but not the two strong ones due to face Ewan and Ema in round 2. Zheng has won her last 2 tournaments (G1 and G2) while Ulises was a finalist at a G1 a week ago
Boys R1 (L64)
Ewan Moore d. Andres Gabriel Ciurletti (ITA) 7-5 6-4
(8) Jay Clarke d. Lukas Klein (SVK) 6-3 7-5
R2
(9) Ulises Blanch (USA) v Ewan Moore
(8) Jay Clarke v (WC) Blake Ellis (AUS)
I notice the entries for the Aussie Open juniors are weak and some of our other juniors could have got in if they had entered.
I know a couple said it was simply too expensive to go.
Both this tournament and Aussie Open have hospitality i.e hotel rooms are covered whilst still in tournaments
Only repeating.
And don't know about this year but previously it was only for the main draw players, and only for the players themselves, with only one male and one female coach per federation covered (and it's the federation that appoints them so those not funded will have no chance of their coach being nominated). And there's travel too.
All this would explain why the field is relatively weak, it is so far to go one would have to questionnaire the value unless like Katie Swann last year they were likely to be a truly top junior.
