Didn't see a thread for this so thought I'd update:
Girls
Marelie Raath is going well in the girls singles and is now in the QF, where she faces the 5th seed, after two comfortable straight sets wins in the earlier rounds. She is number 1 seed for this event by the way.
Daisy Clifford lost in the first round against Carle Botha. Serena Manca won in 3 sets against Amike Botha in the first round, but then suffered a 6-2 6-0 drubbing at the hands of the Danish 4th seed, Sara Borkop.
In doubles, Raath has teamed up with South African Morgan Jordaan, while Manca is playing with Africa Burillo Berazak of Spain. They are 3rd and 4th seeds respectively. No score updates for this draw right now. It appears that Clifford was not able to get into the doubles draw.
Boys
Thomas Aston and Maxwell Castle are both through to the QF stage in boys singles. Aston has the trickier encounter against 4th seed Goncalo Marques of Portugal.
Aston is also through to the QF in the boys doubles, but Castle and his partner lost their first round match.
-- Edited by DavidC on Tuesday 14th of February 2023 06:40:22 PM
Update: Raath won her doubles match 6-1 6-4 against an unseeded SA/Zim combo, while Manca and her partner were knocked out 3-6 0-6 in their match versus what I'm assuming we can call the Botha sisters. Raath has her QF in the singles early tomorrow morning.
Thanks for the detailed info Densher. Marelie is the only Brit heading for the major African event next week - J500 (Grade A) in Cairo. I guess she hopes for a good run here to boost confidence before tackling the strong field in Egypt (Marelie just makes the cut)
Unfortunately Marelie Raath retired in the third set of her QF singles match today. Hopefully this is just precautionary and she won't be forced to pull out of Cairo. As things stand there is no walkover in her doubles match, but that will change I imagine.
Thomas Aston went down 3-6 2-6 to the 4th seed. Still waiting on the score for Maxwell Castle's QF.
Side note: Raath is around 200 in the world, and soon to be a bit higher, without winning an ITF junior singles title (she has been runner-up 3 times I think) with her only titles coming in doubles. Makes me wonder what the record is in junior tennis for the highest ranked player never to win one.
Well, this is unexpected, Raath did in fact play her doubles match despite retiring from singles. She and her partner won convincingly, 6-1 6-2, and play the 2nd seeds Sara Borkop (DEN) and Tayla Wilmot (RSA) in the SF.
Densher wrote:Side note: Raath is around 200 in the world, and soon to be a bit higher, without winning an ITF junior singles title (she has been runner-up 3 times I think) with her only titles coming in doubles. Makes me wonder what the record is in junior tennis for the highest ranked player never to win one.
Its not unusual for players to reach the top 200 without a singles title. I can't answer your question precisely, but I can say that Ranah Stoiber hasn't won a junior singles ITF. Hence the record is 11 or higher, and it wouldn't surprise me if someone had reached top 5 without winning an event
