Although some of our top girls went to Russia earlier this month for a Category 1 event, with limited success, the first major tournament for most under 14s is the Nike Junior International in Bolton, serving as a warm-up for Les Petits As next week.
We have reached round 3 (last 16) with 5 British girls left in: Emma Raducanu, Annali Olivelle (who ousted the 7th seed), Holly Fischer, Amarni Banks (winner against the 8th seed) and Kylie Bilchev. The last two play each other, guaranteeing a quarter-finalist. Both Holly and Kylie are 2003s in a mainly 2002 field. The situation is less rosy with the boys, where only Derrick Chen won a match.
Live scoring is available at http://www.tennisticker.de/gbr/gbr2743/sb.html
Very exciting crop of girls. 03s already had a bit of success at Grade 5 U18. Trip to Russia could have been very high yield with one of our girls loosing to the winner but taking the first set off her 6-0.
Unfortunately the boys would have to be a very strong year to compete and the best athletes are much harder to recruit. I just can't see boys being able to even get close at U18 unless a top top athlete and they are for the most part playing football.
Having said that I did see an U10 ( in the tennis system) take out all but one 15 year old in a bleep test the other day! Definitely a baller! (but presently a very red green baller)
She lost 5-7 in the third against Emma, too, a couple of weeks ago, if I remember right.
But good to know the girls are a good, solid group.
Emma kicked butt in her match, beating one of the top French girls, 6-1 6-0
Holly Fischer played another top French girl, a very interesting girl who (again!) is trained by her father, grew 10 cm last year, and played 20 European tournaments (there was an article about her recently ). A right battle, that Holly came out the right side of, winning 6-3 in the third.
CD sorry not a very coherent post. I agree all things being equal there should be an equivalent cohort of boys in this tournament (this crop of girls look very strong and hopefully will push each other with a high level of domestic competition translating into broader success across the ITF tournaments).
There is the equivalent cohort of elite boys (who at 14 would make 18 year olds run) but they are signed up and playing football.
Regarding the boys most of those here were 2002s, and that year didn't make much impact in TE under 12 events 2 years ago. However Derrick is a 2003, as well as Jack Pinnington Jones, who is our top ranked under 14 (boy or girl) and would have been a top 8 seed had he been here.
The rest of the day was less successful with just Benjamin winning (the two qualifiers play tomorrow). Benjamin earns a crack at top seed Dalibor Svrcina (CZE). Kylie lost in 3 sets to a Russian seed, which was encouraging, but Emma and Jack lost in straights. Holly F plays Salma Djoubri for the second week running, having just edged past her in Bolton
Unfortunately Holly F couldn't repeat her Bolton win losing 6-3 6-4. Holly S unsurprisingly found the top seed Daria Snigur too hot. Benjamin is on court at the moment against the boys top seed - down 0-6 2-3