This year the under 16 and under 18 Nationals took place in June with Wimbledon wildcards at stake. The under 12s and under 14s are in their usual slot but with changes in format. The under 12s are no longer at Bournemouth on clay and both events consist of 8 round robin groups of 4 before a 16 player elimination knock-out
The draws for all events can be found here with Hephzibah Oluwadare and Ben Gusic Wan the top seeds in the under 14s. No sign of Mingge Xu, but Hannah Klugman is there unseeded in the under 14 Group E
The last matches of the group stages are on court, but the top 4 seeds in all 4 singles events (and Hannah) are safely through to the knock-out phase starting tomorrow
And it is proving to be a tight match - currently one set all, with Hannah 1-0* in the decider. Zechariah has pushed Ben to a decider as well, with Ben leading 3-1*
One thing Ive noticed and its great to see is our junior cohort seems a lot more diverse than historically. Less white, middle class Home Counties and a lot more diverse, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, judging just by names really. Good to see.
One thing Ive noticed and its great to see is our junior cohort seems a lot more diverse than historically. Less white, middle class Home Counties and a lot more diverse, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, judging just by names really. Good to see.
When I first took an interest in British tennis 25 years ago there was very little diversity. The change has been very slow - players like Elena Baltacha, Arvind Parmar and Anne Keothavong emerging in the next few years helping, but the numbers from different backgrounds in junior nationals seems to have increased markedly recently. The LTA unveiled an inclusion strategy in May, which promises targeted actions to improve diversity among players (and coaches), though there is plenty of work to do as this BBC article shows
Straightforward for Hannah in the U14 final (6-1 6-1). Congratulations to our under 12 champions Hollie (who came from behind in the third set to edge out Edie 6-2 2-6 7-5) and Mark (6-3 6-2). In the outstanding final Joe raced to a 6-0 first set but Ben leads 5-3 in the second