The rules say that U12 must play their own age group. (Unless they won last year). It's the only age group where that applies.

All the others can double up (but not triple up).

I wish the U12 rule applied to all categories.

www.lta.org.uk/globalassets/competitions/junior-competition/summer/2018---age-group-criteria---junior-nationals.pdf

And 2007-born Hephzibah puts out the top seed, two years older than herself.

I know it's terribly, terribly early but she really is an exciting prospect.....

 

NB Just to add, for general info, that Talia was the girl selected by the LTA for the prestigious Longines Future Tennis Aces tournament this May, held in Paris, with entrants from all over the world, aged under 13. Henry Trump was selected for the boys. If I read their site right, Talia came fourth in her pool, and Henry came third. But you had to be in the top two to qualify through to the quarter-final main draw. 

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Monday 20th of August 2018 11:25:56 AM

Eva Shaw is our highest ranked 2005 in the TE rankings (won the under 12s last year), and in the absence of Matilda Mutavdzic /Andrea Pineda (though the latter is playing under 16s having won the under 14s last year) is the top seed in the under 14s, and progressed easily to round 2 for the loss of 1 game

In the girls U12, it's the LTA 'dream team' that came through, not really the seeds:

Hephzibah Oluwadare v [4] Vlada Kozak

Sophya Devas v [6] Jadesola Cole


In the girls U14, the semi-finalists are:

[1] Eva Shaw v [4] Kristina Paskauskas

[6] Mayéla Bassega v Justice Hall



A propos of not much, there are some wonderful names in that bunch - a lovely mixture - Justice Hall sounds like a place out of Dickens

Also wonderful to see a lot of girls 'of colour' in those two groups. A huge step in the right direction.

NB Mayéla did a big and successful crowd funding last year:

www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/Mayela

Thanks, paulisi, I didn't know those courts.

But, yes, I got the impression that Mayéla is not in the same situation as many of the others - I looked up all the kids and several are at Culford and other posh private schools (Culford offer tennis scholarships but they're only worth 25% of the fees). No criticism of them, of course, and no expensive sport is really 'open to all' but it's still worth highlighting.

By the way, Culford, you say that your programme is run by Andrew Richardson who "achieved an ATP singles ranking of 130 in the world" - just being picky but according to both the ATP and the ITF site, it was 133.

More importantly, yes, trying to become a top junior playing on pay-as-you-play courts sounds a sad state of affairs. Great to see the local support though. Good luck to her.

Hephzibah edged a marathon tiebreak to ensure that the under 12 final will be contested by the two singles players in the European Summer Cup team. Holly Staff remains on course for both the U16 and U18 titles

U12 semis

Hephzibah Oluwadare d. [4] Vlada Kozak 7-6(10) 6-0
Sophya Devas d. [6] Jadesola Cole 6-1 6-2

U14 semis

[1] Eva Shaw d. [4] Kristina Paskauskas 6-2 6-0
Justice Hall d. [6] Mayéla Bassega 6-3 6-2

U16 semis

Andrea Pineda v (4) Holly Staff
(7) Charlotte Russell v (Q) Sofia Johnson

U18 semis

[4] Amelia Rajecki (2002) d. Sonay Kartal (2001) 2-1 rtd
[6] Holly Staff (2002) d. [3] Alicia Dudeney (2003) 4-6 6-4 6-3

So sad to see Sonay retire again, and after only a couple of games.

The U12 looks like a real genuine title chase, excellent.

Well done also to qualifier and tiddler, Mingge Xu, (who goes by Mimi), born 2007, who beat the top seed (Talia, born 2005) in the Consolation final.

Coached by Fran Lewis (who people might remember for just getting her WTA ranking some 6 or 7 years back), from Wales, I believe, and with a wonderful 'Tiger Mom's delight' twitter profile, with violin, piano, music theory, tennis, report cards, swimming ..... Way to go, Mimi