With his first round win in Australian Open men's qualifying (draws here) over Yeu-Tzuoo Wang, 15-year-old Bernard Tomic has assured himself even more media coverage in the coming days and weeks. There's been plenty of hyperbole since his Orange Bowl win last month, with one widely circulated Australian Associated Press story calling him "far and away the world's best 15-year-old", which would come as a surprise to Ryan Harrison and Yuki Bhambri, who are that age and just behind Tomic in the ITF junior rankings and Filip Krajinovic, who beat him soundly at the Eddie Herr just six weeks ago. Another story called him "world junior champion" which is, of course, the exclusive property of Ricardas Berankis and Urszula Radwanska at the moment.
Entitled Teen shows Lleyton how it's done, this story is more sensible, with both perspective and a lot of comments by Hewitt about the insignificance of junior wins. I don't share his scorn (and Nadal did play some junior tennis), but it's a point of view that deserves some consideration.
But the main thing I like about this story is the recognition of that special quality of finding a way to win when losing is a real option. Tomic displayed it at the 2006 Junior Orange Bowl, when he saved a match point in the final, he did it at the Junior Davis Cup against Giacomo Miccini, when he won the third set 13-11 and he did it again yesterday, saving five match points in a 28 point second set tiebreaker. All the beautiful forehands in the world don't amount to much if that's missing.
Tomorrow we head back to Florida for junior tournaments the next two weekends, the first one in Tampa, and perhaps we'll have a chance to look in on the Futures tournaments being held in Wesley Chapel. Last year, the men's and women's tournaments were at the same site as the Florida 18s designated, but the pros have moved north. After the first round, there are plenty of current and former collegians still in the men's draw, but no juniors. A few high profile junior girls are through to the second round--Anastasia Pivovarova, U.S. Open Junior Champion Kristina Kucova (a qualifier) and Ksenia Pervak. Kim Couts, Audra Cohen, Angela Haynes and Alexis Gordon are the U.S. women who advanced. For complete draws, see the USTA Pro Circuit page.
Entitled Teen shows Lleyton how it's done, this story is more sensible, with both perspective and a lot of comments by Hewitt about the insignificance of junior wins. I don't share his scorn (and Nadal did play some junior tennis), but it's a point of view that deserves some consideration.
But the main thing I like about this story is the recognition of that special quality of finding a way to win when losing is a real option. Tomic displayed it at the 2006 Junior Orange Bowl, when he saved a match point in the final, he did it at the Junior Davis Cup against Giacomo Miccini, when he won the third set 13-11 and he did it again yesterday, saving five match points in a 28 point second set tiebreaker. All the beautiful forehands in the world don't amount to much if that's missing.
Tomorrow we head back to Florida for junior tournaments the next two weekends, the first one in Tampa, and perhaps we'll have a chance to look in on the Futures tournaments being held in Wesley Chapel. Last year, the men's and women's tournaments were at the same site as the Florida 18s designated, but the pros have moved north. After the first round, there are plenty of current and former collegians still in the men's draw, but no juniors. A few high profile junior girls are through to the second round--Anastasia Pivovarova, U.S. Open Junior Champion Kristina Kucova (a qualifier) and Ksenia Pervak. Kim Couts, Audra Cohen, Angela Haynes and Alexis Gordon are the U.S. women who advanced. For complete draws, see the USTA Pro Circuit page.
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