After a week of high-quality tennis, the prestigious Category 1 14 & Under Kungens Kanna and Drottningen Pris tournament came to an end in Stockholm on Saturday. Things generally went according to plan for the top players, although several unseeded players made a big impression. The boys’ champion was second seeded Pole, Dawid Taczala, while Russian top seed Daria Frayman was crowned girls’ champion.
The boys draw saw Croatian number one seed Borna Devald get bundled out in the second round by Swiss qualifier Thomas George Brun, who kept his amazing run alive until the quarter finals. Devald – runner up at recent Category 1 events in Tarbes and Bolton - had a bye in the first round as the rather rusty 6-3 6-1 score line demonstrates. Although there were a number of local players, the best performance came from Adam Heinonen, who made it through to the third round. Despite his three-set win in the quarter finals, Taczala came through with relatively straightforward wins in all of his matches up to and including the final where he defeated unseeded German Max Wiskandt. After the match, Taczala described his win as “amazing and a very good experience.” He was happy to win the first set not paying as well as he would have liked, and was happy to come away with a straight sets victory. With the win, Taczala consolidates his top 5 spot on the 14 & Under rankings.
The girls’ draw was rather more routine. There were only two unseeded players in the quarter finals and just one, Austria’s Sinja Kraus, in the semi-finals. En route she had taken out the twelfth, seventh and fourteenth seeds respectively, to earn herself a place in the last four. The final saw the top two seeds clash, with Frayman taking out Slovakian Romana Cisovska 6-2 6-3 in their first meeting, making her the fourth Russian in a row to win this title. In her post match interview, a humble Frayman claimed that stepping onto a court where the likes of Roger Federer once played was daunting. She confessed to feeling “scared and nervous” going into the match, but that she won as she had simply “tried my best”. In doing so she strengthens her challenge for the top spot on the Tennis Europe Junior Tour rankings.
The boys’ doubles winners were Alexander Georg Mandma from Estonia, and Swiss Jeffrey Von Der Schulenburg. They had earlier taken out the top seeds Alexander Gaponenko of Israel and Borna Devald who, by his recent standards, might be disappointed with his results in this tournament. Ciskova got some consolation for her loss in the singles final by taking home the doubles trophy, teaming up with Latvia’s Kamilla Bartone.
The Category 3 Focus Tennis Academy Open, with both 14 and Under and 16 and Under draws, wound up on Sunday. There was lots of tennis to be played, with many events taking place over nine days in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. With very strong international representation, the local players excelled as they filled up the vast majority of semi-final, runners up and champion spots on all the winners lists.
In the 16 and Under draws, the first exception to this rule was a victory by boys’ top seed Giulio Zeppieri of Italy. Not having dropped a set all tournament, he took out the number two seed, Lodewijk Weststrate of the Netherlands, with another straight sets victory 6-4 7-6. Two more Dutch players, Julian Prins and Jesper De Jong were the semi-finalists. The girls 16 and Under champion was Hungarian third seed Reka Zadori, who saw off Italian qualifier Martina Biagianti 6-3 6-3 in the final. Again, Dutch players performed well, with the two losing semi-finalists being Margriet Timmermans and Perla Nieuwboer.
In the doubles, singles semi-finalist Jesper De Jong teamed with his compatriot Alexander Maarten Jong. Although unseeded, they managed a 6-3 7-5 win over fellow Dutchmen and seventh seeds Rik Muller & Lodewijk Weststrate. The girls’ final was another all-Dutch affair. Isabelle Haverlag & Margriet Timmermans defeated Emma Goedkoop & Kim Hansen in a thrilling match for the home crowd, with a 6-1 4-6 10-5 win.
In the 14 and Under events, there were Dutch winners across the board except in the girls singles where German third-seed Amelie-Christin Janssen defeated home player Kim Hanson 6-1 6-3 in the final. Jesse Den Hartog won his final against Spanish third seed Diego Augusto Barreto Sanchez after the Spaniard retired injured from the match after having lost the first set. The boys’ doubles champions were Jens Hoogendam & Thijmen Loof, while the girls trophy was lifted by top seeds Madelief Hageman & Bente Spee.
The final Tour event last week was the 12 & Under tournament in Umag. A full list of the winners can be found here.
This week the Tennis Europe Junior Tour springs back to life with a total of seven tournaments, including the Category 1 Tim Essonne championships in France, and the ITF/Tennis Europe 14 & Under Development Championships in Antalya. Keep up with all the latest results here.