Boys & Girls: U14 Junior International Bolton, indoor acrylic (week 3b)

DavidC · Tennis legend

Boys & Girls: U14 Junior International Bolton, indoor acrylic (week 3b)

DavidC · Tennis legend

A good day with Henry crushing the top seed 2 & 1, joined by both Jamie and Viktor in the quarters. The USA always bring over a strong contingent, and they take up the other 5 quarter-final positions. In the girls event Mingge comfortably won the all-British clash, and is joined in the quarters by Hannah and Hephzibah. Hephzibah is currently at 25 in the TE14 rankings, the third highest 2007 behind a couple of Russian girls

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Go, Hep !

And all the others too

DavidC · Tennis legend

4 British semifinalists is the most I can remember here. Mingge was particularly ruthless double bagelling her opponent, so both 2007s go through. Clips of many of the matches are on this Twitter feed

Boys SF

Nikita Samuel Filin (USA) v Jamie Diack
(7) Viktor Frydrych v (9) Alexander Razeghi (USA)

Girls SF

Mingge Xu v (4) Sarah Iliev (FRA)
(3) Anastasia Firman (UKR) v (7) Hephzibah Oluwadare

Mervatron2 · Futures level

Loved the clips. Thanks for sharing.

Hephzibah looks a brilliant prospect

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Mervatron2 wrote:
Loved the clips. Thanks for sharing.

Hephzibah looks a brilliant prospect

She's fab smile

DavidC · Tennis legend

And encouragingly we have our two 2007 girls into the final without dropping a set yet (most of the field here are 2006)

Boys SF

Nikita Samuel Filin (USA) d. Jamie Diack 7-6(2) 7-5
(9) Alexander Razeghi (USA) d. (7) Viktor Frydrych 6-1 6-4

Girls SF

Mingge Xu d. (4) Sarah Iliev (FRA) 6-4 6-3
(7) Hephzibah Oluwadare d. (3) Anastasia Firman (UKR) 6-2 6-4

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

LTA Competitions
@LTACompetitions
· 19h

When 12-year-olds @mingge_mimi and @Hephzibahdare face off tomorrow, it will be the first time ever that two Brits have faced off for the #JuniorInternational Bolton title.

It guarantees a first British winner of the girls event since @maialumsden triumphed in 2012.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

And Mingge XU (who goes by Mimi, I believe) gets bragging rights

Congrats to her, on a 6-2 6-2 win!!!!

And to Heph too.

paulisi · Tennis legend

Yes - it's Mimi and she is based in South Wales.
I said she was good when I saw her win the TE event at the Wirral

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Yes. She's into piano and lots of other things too - an accomplished young lady.

She's very tall though and this gives her a considerable advantage at her age. Of course, she may well carry on growing, which is also a big advantage for tennis in adults too (although there are potentially certain downsides if too tall).
But we've had very tall youngsters before, who've stood out as kids, and then not progressed as they stopped growing and others caught up.

I think Mingge is great, and it's wonderful that we've got her and Heph (and others) to give some momentum. But her tennis is little laboured, her natural timing doesn't seem as good as some.

Which is not taking anything away from a brilliant week for her, and great progress over the past year too. (And players like Lindsay Davenport were tall and always a little laboured too, and didn't do too badly smile )

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Friday 24th of January 2020 04:33:59 PM

barry10 · Improver

Coup Droit wrote:

She's very tall though and this gives her a considerable advantage at her age.

yes she has to be congratulated for the result, but the bit of junior tennis I have seen over the last few years has shown to me that kids develop early and have a height advantage find it so much easier to compete with kids that are older (thou may not be a tall)

I have been told that this also causes a disadvantage (by a coach, who has "seen it all") as once the other kids grow to a similar height, they generally beat these early developers, due to the kids which were tall first develop there serve game, where the smaller kids develop there return game to try to compete. hence when the same height the first lot are missing the return part of there game. (weather this is the case, im not so sure?)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Hi Barry10 !

Yes, I tend to feel the same way, based on what I've seen and been involved with.

As said, if the kid keeps on growing and ends up tall, then that's a different picture.

But, I agree, those who are tall as youngsters because they've shot up early, and then everyone else catches up, often find it very difficult later on.

DavidC · Tennis legend

Interview with Mingge

Photo of both finalists with trophies (confirming the height difference)

A few clips from the match on the Twitter feed linked to earlier