Iga Swiatek of Poland and Duje Ajdukovic of Croatia have been crowned as the new European 14 & Under Champions as a week of high-quality tennis draws to a close at TK Slavia Pilsen (CZE).
Unseeded Swiatek put in a dominant performance in the final to blast past the tournament’s top seed and European #2 Taisya Pachkaleva of Russia 6-2 6-1, becoming the first Polish girl ever to win the title.
Swiatek seemed to get better and better as the tournament progressed. Having lost the second set of their third round match to talented Serbian Olga Danilovic, she recovered to win the last six games and never looked back, winning the rest of her matches in straight sets and losing a total of just five games in her last two matches.
She also achieved the rare feat of winning two gold medals, having sealed the doubles title the previous day alongside Maja Chwalinska. The pair Italians Elisabetta Cocciaretto and Federica Rossi. Incredibly, the European Championships – the biggest title on the Tennis Europe Junior Tour – is Swiatek’s first tournament win of the season, though she did lead Poland’s Winter Cups by HEAD team to victory in February.
Eighth seeded Ajdukovic scored a third consecutive upset win to complete his path to the boys’ title. Having upset #2 seed Adrian Andreev (BUL) and #5 Wojciech Marek (POL) in his previous two matches, the Croatian withstood a second set fightback from #4 Filip Jianu of Romania before completing a 6-4 2-6 6-2 win.
Ajdukovic has been in impressive form in recent weeks, reaching the quarterfinals of the 16 & Under Avvenire event in Milan and leading his team to the final of the 14 & Under European Summer Cups event. The win is just his second title of the season though, having earlier triumphed at the Category 2 Mladost Grill Open in Zagreb. He becomes the first Croatian boy to win the title since Mario Ancic in 1998.
Saturday’s doubles final saw Czech team Jiri Lehecka & Andrew Paulson please the home crowd in Pilsen with a 6-0 6-4 win over the top seeded Russians Matvey Minin & Timofey Skatov.
The four singles finalists – Swiatek, Pachkaleva, Ajdukovic and Marek, automatically qualify to take part in the season-ending Tennis Europe Junior Masters in Reggio Calabria, Italy, in October.
Results - 14 & Under
Boys Singles | Boys Doubles | Girls Singles | Girls Doubles |Photos