There is a big international U12 competition at Auray this week. The qualis started today.

All the matches are livestreamed (!!!)

Mila Burek got beaten quite comprehensively by a new French prodigy, Maelys Richol, who's a year younger, leftie, and rather good.

Young Jansen, though, won, 6-1 6-1. With a lovely serve for someone that age.

All the matches are on:

www.youtube.com/user/OpenSuper12Auray

Young Matilda is playing very well (tights and all) - she certainly has a LOT more to her game that Mila Burek does, for instance. Especially impressive if she is a year younger (I'm not sure).

SHe lost the first set 3-6 and took the second 6-0. Currently the start of the third.

Can't see the archived stream for William - but he must have won, he was far superior to his opponent.

For the die-hard junior tennis enthusiasts, after watching a fair bit of the livestreams today, thoughts and results are as follows:

At the Open Super12 Auray today, it was very much a batch bunch: a whole clutch of british youngsters with (a) very nice serves for their age, (b) dodgy forehands, and (c) mediocre footwork.

You would almost wonder if they were all coached by the same person.

Andrea Pineda was the only one who didn't fall into this group - a far more dynamic player and the only one who hits through her forehand. Won easily.

Hannah Smith - a tall girl, with the makings of a really lovely serve, and loves coming to the net (which is not a smart way to play in junior tennis but who cares, go for it). BUT a wristy forehand that she never gets her weight behind, and a bit slow. She won in three sets, tight match.

Louis Davey - as per the generic comment. Both the good (serve) and bad (forehand). But was definitely superior to his opponent and deservedly won.

Samuel Reeve - again, tall, great serve, no forehand (breaks his wrist and pushes it). Lost in a close match.

Qualifier William Jansen also won in two close sets (didn't find a stream for that match but had seen his Q matches).

NB the streams are excellent.

No. Quite the opposite.

The GB players had far better serves (overall) than their counterparts (Mila's being the only exception).

Really nice, technical serves. Impressive for their age.

But their forehands were way worse - the Europeans were cracking their forehands, covering the ball properly with the wrist (as opposed to ours who were doing the opposite), using their legs and weight.

Completely chalk and cheese.

The movement is maybe a little more difficult to compare because the GB players are taller (on average) than the others (there are German/Scandi youngsters, say, playing there but most are French obviously and - generally - a little shorter). And obviously taller kids often have more trouble being dynamic on their feet.

But it was still mediocre (at best).

I wonder if trainers in the UK still just spend tons of sessions getting the child to serve buckets of balls?

Young Hannah played a very nice match today. As before, her serve was a real weapon, a lovely shot and great technique (unlike the Bulgarian girl's.....)

And she carried on, coming into the net whenever possible (or even when not possible). With some brilliant results at times. I think Hannah Smith's forays into the net are going to be legendary on this forum in a few years time

Definitely fun to watch. And she won, deservedly, 6-3 6-4

An interesting match in the boys. Partly because Louis was playing a young boy from Thailand called Patrick Brady. I thought the name rang a bell and DavidC had indeed posted about him in the Eddie Herr U12 a couple of months ago - playing for the UK ! And there are lots of newspaper articles about him, in Wanstead, training with his Dad, who - seemingly - is a British tennis coach, traveling with players, taking Patrick with him at times. And Patrick spending time in Argentina where (you'll like this, The Optimist) he says they spend hours and hours drilling footwork, and other technique.

And then he''s seemingly changed nationality to be Thai...... (he does look as though his mother may well be Thai, which might partly explain it.......) Don't know if anyone knows anything more......

Anyway, he's a small lad and plays quite nicely but Louis carried on his canny knack of using his weapons to their best effect, despite some of their deficiencies, and Louis won 6-4 6-3

But Andrea Pineda (the number one seed and GB's top girl) lost today in three sets (haven't watched the match yet).

Thank you, Merv.

Don't think I'll get time to watch that one so good to know.

Hannah Smith came unstuck this morning against a very mobile Belgian girl who had a nice depth and placement to her shots. It made it difficult for Hannah to 'do her thing'. The Belgian also attacked her serve really aggressively at the start, which visibly unsettled Hannah and meant she never got it working as she would have liked. But a good week for her, nonetheless, I'd have thought.

However, Hannah and Andrea won their doubles, so that's good.

Louis Davey won comfortably. Well done to him. Off to watch that now