Helen McFetridge of the ITF recently filed this preview of the Australian Open Junior Championships, which I am, sadly, not going to be covering live. (I also have heard recently that juniortennis.com has changed its plans and will not be there either--coverage will be confined to the ITF and whatever the Australian Open website gets around to posting).
There isn't much to disagree with in her handicapping, although I would probably favor Cornet or Paszek, not Pavlyuchenkova, given that they made it through qualifying in the main draw in Australia, while she fell a match short. I also would mention Evgeniya Rodina of Russia, who is ranked 222 by the WTA computers, a number that might earn her a seed, despite an ITF ranking of 60.
The girls event is unquestionably deeper than the boys, primarily because many girls eligible for main draw qualifying made it worth the trip by entering the juniors too. (None of the boys in the juniors would have had a prayer of getting in qualifying without a wild card). In that category is Madison Brengle, who won the USTA's main draw wild card tournament as a last-minute replacement in December, and had the misfortune of drawing No. 8 seed Patty Schnyder in the first round in Australia. The other U.S. girls in the junior draw are Julia Cohen, Reka Zsilinszka, Kim Couts, Chelsey Gullickson and Missy Clayton. Unlike last year, when five U.S. girls qualified, there will not be appreciably more when qualifying is complete; only Julia Boserup (who had a huge win over world No. 3 Ksenia Milevskaya of Belarus in the quarterfinals of this week's Nottinghill Grade 1) and Brittany Augustine are in the qualifying draw, although both won on Friday.
Only four U.S. boys made the long journey Down Under: Dennis Lajola, Johnny Hamui, Mateusz Kecki and Austin Krajicek. The ITF's top-ranked U.S. boys, Kellen Damico (5), Donald Young (9) and Rhyne Williams (42) passed on the opportunity. Young and Williams are playing the Futures events in Florida this month. The only American in qualifying is Drew Daniel, who was the last player not to get in on his ranking (at the time of acceptance 129, now 66), meaning he will be the first "lucky loser" in, now that he has won his first round in qualifying (I'm pretty sure that's how it works in Grand Slams).
For the qualifying draws, check here. If you are interested in the acceptance list, there is a tab at the top of the page for that (scroll down a bit once you land on that page).
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