Tennis Europe Junior Tour

Pervushina & Molleker maintain win streaks at Tim Essonne

Pervushina & Molleker maintain win streaks at Tim Essonne

European 14 & Under #1 Olesya Pervushina continued her excellent start to the season by winning her second Category 1 title in successive weeks at the Tim Essonne event in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois, France. The Russian continued in the same dominant form she showed in Stockholm last week to breeze through the 64-player draw without the loss of a set.

She saved her best performance for last, handing a 6-0 6-0 loss to second seeded Ukrainian Katarina Zavatska to strengthen her grip on the #1 spot, and has now won three consecutive events.

The boys’ final was another battle between the top two seeds, and surprisingly saw exactly the same score line. However, on this occasion it was the #2 seed that won as Rudolf Molleker of Germany beat Europe’s top player Alen Avidzba decisively to edge closer to the top spot himself. Molleker’s last appearance on the Tour was on the winning German Winter Cups by HEAD team, and he extends his current winning streak to 12 matches.

The girls’ doubles went to the second seeded team of Francesca Jones (GBR) and Dalila Said (EGY), who survived a topsy-turvy 7-5 0-6 10-7 final against Ania Hertel & Wiktoria Rutkowska (POL).  Home players Dorian Bahloul & Youlian Iakovlev had an excellent week to win the boys’ doubles. Having come through the draw unseeded, they beat the more experienced second seeds Evzen Holis & Tomas Jirousek 6-4 1-6 10-5 in the final to win their first Tennis Europe Junior Tour title.

Three 16 & Under tournaments were also held last week, making it the busiest week of the year so far for the age group. The biggest event in terms of ranking points offered was the Category 2 13th Realsport Open in Milovice, Czech Republic, where two players narrowly failed to scoop both singles and doubles titles.

Boys’ top seed Mikalai Haliak teamed with Belarusian compatriot Maxim Tybar to win the doubles over home team Antonin Bolardt & Tomas Machac. The pair had earlier been on opposite sides of the net for the singles semi-final, won by Haliak 6-4 6-2. Croatia’s Borna Gojo managed to score an upset in the final though, weathering a second set recovery to beat Haliak 7-6(2) 3-6 6-2 and win his first title since Maribor last summer.

The girls’ event saw the reverse scenario as Zinovia Vaneva of Bulgaria won the singles final but lost in doubles. Teaming with Lucie Kankova (CZE), she lost to unseeded Czechs Monika Behounkova & Adriana Marikova  in Saturday’s doubles final, but staged a remarkable recovery to win the singles event. Martina Kudelova (CZE) led the final 6-1 and seemed on the verge of victory before Vaneva managed to clinch the second set, eventually emerging with a 1-6 7-5 6-2 win and a first 16 & Under title on the Tour.

Lithuanian players dominated the boys’ events at the Pajulahti Cup in Nastola, Finland, with Tomas Vaise lifting both trophies. He teamed with compatriot Gvidas Motuzas to beat Andrey Landgraf & Mark Sekamov (RUS) in the doubles final, and scored a straightforward 6-4 6-4 win over Martin Valdo Randpere of Estonia to win the singles.

Three Russian girls walked away with silverware; second seed Valeriya Denisenko beat Zhibek Kulambayeva of Kazakhstan 6-1 7-5 to win her first Tour singles title, while Sofya Treshcheva & Ekaterina Vishnevskaya came from a set down to beat top seeds Denisenko & Maria Galiy 3-6 6-3 10-6. The win marks a second doubles title for Treshcheva and fourth for Vishnevskaya.

The Tour called in on Switzerland for the second time in three weeks for the Scuola Tennis Taverne Junior Cup. Local players reached the finals in all four events, but only one – Susan Bandecchi – managed to claim a title.

By astonishing coincidence, Bandecchi had to play against Italian opposition in all five of her matches, but she was pushed to three sets just once, against top seed Maria Vittoria Viviani in the quarterfinals, an impressive feat for a player who had never previously advanced past the third round of a Tennis Europe Junior Tour 16 & under event . In the final she scored a 7-6(2) 6-1 victory over Francesca Rumi to wrap up a popular win.

Bandecchi also reached the doubles final with Beatrice Reda (ITA), where she fell to yet more Italians, Alexia Carlone & Giulia Turconi.

The boys’ final also saw a Swiss-Italian final, with Federico Bertuccioli (ITA) scoring a minor upset over sixth seeded Charles Antione Coens to take the title after a three set match.  The doubles went to Serbia’s Boris Batulija & Patrick Zahraj of Germany who beat Joel Javier Alt & Jakub Paul 6-2 6-3.

This week the Tennis Europe Junior Tour continues with a total of five events across three age groups, including the first week of the closed ITF/Tennis Europe Development Championships in Antalya.

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