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Saturday, June 28, 2008

Wimbledon Juniors Day One; Contest for All-Access Passes Ends at 9 pm EDT Saturday


The first day of Wimbledon junior competition is over, and seven seeds made their exits. Ty Trombetta of the U.S. topped No. 5 seed Yuki Bhambri of India 7-6(2), 6-4, while No. 8 Marcelo Arevalo of El Salvador and No. 12 seed Peerakit Siributwong were also defeated. Bhambri, a semifinalist in this year's Australia Juniors, has had a woeful spring in Europe, going 0-2 on the clay and 0-2 on the grass, with this loss.

Ryan Harrison, the No. 7 seed, saved two match points in the second set tiebreaker and managed to get past Vasek Pospisil of Canada 6-7(5), 7-6(8), 6-4, and No. 16 seed Bradley Klahn was taken to three sets, but won the final one 6-0 in his win over Di Wu of China. Chase Buchanan, the No. 14 seed, made it through in straight sets, but his doubles partner, Jarmere Jenkins, was eliminated by No. 6 seed Henrique Cunha of Brazil.

The girls draw lost both of the Romanian Bogdans (not related), No. 4 seed Elena, the French Open finalist who beat Oudin at Roland Garros, and No. 7 Ana. Kurumi Nara of Japan, the No. 8 seed, and No. 11 Ksenia Lykina of Russia also lost in Saturday's opening round. Mallory Burdette of the U.S. was defeated by Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan, the 2007 Eddie Herr 16s champion. Top seed Melanie Oudin and wild card Coco Vandeweghe, the other two U.S. girls in the draw, will play their first round matches on Monday.

It's refreshing to have an official website pay attention to the juniors, and today Wimbledon.org has no less than three news stories devoted to them. This one is on how the seeds fared, this one on the British juniors and this one on top seed Bernard Tomic of Australia, who demolished Spain's Carlos Boluda in the opening round. For complete draws, including doubles, which were released today, visit wimbledon.org.

The drawing for the four All-Access passes will take place tonight at 9 p.m. and I will email the winners shortly thereafter. I will close the comments on Friday's post below, after I make my picks in the last comment.

I am also pleased to announce that Guy McCrea of Radio Wimbledon will be contributing reports on the junior action next week direct from the All-England Club. He is covering the juniors for Radio Wimbledon, so he will have plenty of valuable observations on this year's junior event for zootennis readers.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a bold statement coming from Tomic's dad considering he has lost to Maccini and Krajanovic and what Harrison did in Houston. Whoever said Cuevas was on the take in Houston. Get real with all the trouble going on with Nikolay D. No way Tomic wins on grass. Way to slow and professionally when the game speeds up I just dont see how he will be that good with such slow feet. Another overhyped D.Y. in the making.