Boys & Girls: NWU Pukke, South Africa, hard - Grade 5 (Week 9)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Boys & Girls: NWU Pukke, South Africa, hard - Grade 5 (Week 9)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

BRILLIANT result from young George, putting out the top seed, Junior World Ranked 174 !!!! :

R2 Boys:

George LOFFHAGEN (GBR) (2001) def. Bertus KRUGER (RSA) [1] (1999) JWR 174 6-4 7-6(4)

R2 Girls

Olivia ELLIOTT (GBR) [7] (2001) 6-3 6-0 Tanaka CHAKANYUKA (ZIM)

I remember reading a fair bit about George a couple of years ago, all extremely promising. He was in the LTA teams for U12s and all that sort of thing.

But he seems to have fallen off the map a bit..... I read something about injury.....does anyone know?

Also, I know he's from London, but seems to play a lot in South Africa. Wondered if he'd actually moved there, or just has family, or something.

Anyway, congrats to both and keep going !

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

Yes, George was a great little player a year or two ago, although somewhat emotional if not winning easily. Not sure what the injury was, although stress fracture of the back rings a bell, but I may be getting confused with Finn Bass there (he defo had that issue). Anyway, he's had an injury which has kept him out for at least a year. Don't think there's a family connection with South Africa. I think it 's just a popular place for Brits to get their first points, can nearly always get into qualies and a good chance (certainly no guarantee though) of a reasonable draw. Flights not too bad if booked well in advance. European junior events are generally 2 or times oversubscribed so hard for those without points to get into and if they do, flights have to be booked at the last minute making them expensive. Really hope George does well and suffers no further major injuries, he's a super young lad.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Thank you very much for this, The O.

Very interesting. I will definitely keep George on my radar list now, cheers.

And interesting about the S. African circuit. I hadn't really realised how oversubscribed the European ones are, or the significance. I noticed Jojo Bach was picking up 'easy-ish' points and her (French) academy was sending players there, so that sort of ties in.

Mind you, with (at least) 10 points here, George'll go up to (at least) JWR1250 or so.

He's now got a top 500 French boy but it's a kid who has played a lot of tournaments so is probably fully ranked. And last week he lost (in three sets) to the top seed who George beat (in three sets) yesterday. Which bodes well. But tennis is hardly an exact science.....