The Official Teenage Tennis Talent Thread

O

Oz_Rocket

Professional
Nathaniel_Near said:
A number of apparently talented Koreans are coming through, which is good to see. Chung is obviously particularly precocious though, and comparable to Coric.
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We're starting to see some good players from Asia at Australian tournaments. The Chinese 12/U boys team cleaned up at our national age championships last December and a Chinese kid won the 12/U Australian boys national singles title.

There were also a coupe of good Vietnamese kids at the AO juniors. Give it 5-10 years and I think we'll see that flow on to the WTA/ATP ranks.
 
J

JanowiczJ

Professional
stringertom said:
Has anyone seen enough of Jaume Munar, the teenage Mallorcan, to clue us in on his potential? He lost the final of the boys' RG'14 final to Rublev. Just last week he qualified at Barca, beating Munoz-De La Nava and Cachin in straight sets but lost badly to Paire in 1R.
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Well, he's a typical Spaniard on Clay. I don't see weapons on his game for him to become a contender of Masters and majors. But on clay? who knows... Those spaniards are crazy. Anyways, I watched him in the first ITF Junior Masters and he was by far the worst player out of the top8 juniors in there. That was a very fast court, tho.

Including other 2 'clay players' that were there.

PS: Roland Garros real final was the SF between Andrey Rublev and Orlando Luz.
 
J

JanowiczJ

Professional
A video of Luz's FH in Slow MO:

https://youtu.be/54aoxnf8nd0

Algo said:
Luz d Musialek 67 76 76
I really like this guy. Lots of power and he holds his own e.g had several chances to win "in regulation" at the third, kept blowing them away but was able to finish it off.
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I was watching that match. Musialek showed tremendous heart. He was standing way behind the baseline to the point that Luz probably hit 15 to 20 dropshot winners /unreturned. I'm not exaggerating, btw. He tried at least 25 Drop shots lol. But dude wouldn't move up. And he hit so many lines on defensive shots. Drove Luz crazy.

A French with tremendous heart... Quite refreshing.

PS: Luz is playing without a flat serve. He puts himself in tough situations and has to get out of it with his ground strokes alone. Quite hard for a teenager. He rarely gets free points on his serve.

Anyways, Luz reached the semifinals last week at Santos Challenger and now he reaches the QF. I doubt he'll stand a chance against Pella tomorrow, tho. He probably left the court exhausted.

They put him on the last game of today and tomorrow he'll play again in just 13 hours. Not sure why he couldn't close the day again. :|
 
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okdude1992

okdude1992

Hall of Fame
Algo said:
Luz d Musialek 67 76 76
I really like this guy. Lots of power and he holds his own e.g had several chances to win "in regulation" at the third, kept blowing them away but was able to finish it off.
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I saw that match as well. On the positive Luz was very mentally tough during a seesaw match and ended up winning. He has a great mentality. He is pretty solid from the ground also. The bad news is that he got broken what, 9 times? That doesn't speak well towards an elite career in the men's game. You can get away with that in juniors, but not at the ATP level.
 
okdude1992

okdude1992

Hall of Fame
Just have to say I am extremely impressed with Tiafoe the last 3 weeks. Great results, and his game has improved so much since 2014. (Have to give Nathaniel credit for calling it)

I sincerely hope to see him and Donaldson square off in Talahassee. That would be a sweet way to determine who is the top dog of the young Americans. And who will get the prized RG wildcard.
 
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J

JanowiczJ

Professional
stringertom said:
I guess he will get top seeding at any Challenger he enters in Asia as planned. Was he high enough to get in RG before the cutoff?
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I think that's a smart decision by Chung. One mistake youngster that did well on the Junior tour do is trying to leave the challenger tour too fast once they get close or barely inside the Top100. You need to learn how to win a title, how to face an opponent who's been on a very good week too and beat him at his best. Also, they need playing time more than ATP points to make a better transition. Instead they try to qualify for 250/500 tournaments. Or get WCs (Chung could probably get a lot of WCs if he wanted right now). Then you win one game, lose the other, and that was your week.

Even if you faced a top50, that's not better than playing 5 games in 6 days and winning a challenger.
 
Sysyphus

Sysyphus

Talk Tennis Guru
JanowiczJ said:
I think that's a smart decision by Chung. One mistake youngster that did well on the Junior tour do is trying to leave the challenger tour too fast once they get close or barely inside the Top100. You need to learn how to win a title, how to face an opponent who's been on a very good week too and beat him at his best. Also, they need playing time more than ATP points to make a better transition. Instead they try to qualify for 250/500 tournaments. Or get WCs (Chung could probably get a lot of WCs if he wanted right now). Then you win one game, lose the other, and that was your week.

Even if you faced a top50, that's not better than playing 5 games in 6 days and winning a challenger.
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I agree, good point.

They need to learn the habit of winning (and playing lots of matches), and making the transition too soon may hamper this.
 
stringertom

stringertom

Bionic Poster
Sysyphus said:
I agree, good point.

They need to learn the habit of winning (and playing lots of matches), and making the transition too soon may hamper this.
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Points-wise, it's also potentially smart. Sure, you give up the chance for a home run but if you win as you should at the lower level you get so many more points than 1 or 2 Tour wins represent. Currently, at #88, his goal I'm sure is to reach up where he is main draw at all the top tournaments this summer. Qualies in the NA HC MS1000's are a bear due to potentially harsh weather.
 
Algo

Algo

Hall of Fame
Hamou d Karatsev 6/3 7/6 earlier today.
He was trailing 3/5 in the second but Karatsev pulled a Nole and a Federer to break himself.
 
U

Unfrozen Caveman

Rookie
Tiafoe seems rattled by Sandgren's injury. It's almost like he is ticked off and thinks Sandgren is faking it or exaggerating it. Tiafoe called a trainer himself. Retaliation?
 
Sysyphus

Sysyphus

Talk Tennis Guru
Tiafoe down a break in the third against Sandgren. Seems like he'll finally lose a three-setter, but it ain't over.

Unfrozen Caveman said:
Tiafoe seems rattled by Sandgren's injury. It's almost like he is ticked off and thinks Sandgren is faking it or exaggerating it. Tiafoe called a trainer himself. Retaliation?
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Interesting, I didn't catch this.

Tiafoe indeed seems like he can lose some focus.
 
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U

Unfrozen Caveman

Rookie
Tiafoe through to the finals. Impressive performance overall. A few points here and there where he seemed to take a mental snooze. Glad he won especially since Sandgren's injury would have probably hampered his chances tomorrow if he had won.
 
Sysyphus

Sysyphus

Talk Tennis Guru
Amazing resilience from Tiafoe. He seems incapable of not closing out these three-setters.

I hope Donaldson follows suit to set up the teen-final with a RG wildcard on the line.
 
J

JanowiczJ

Professional
So, with Donaldson's loss in the Semifinals, Tiafoe guaranteed the WC for Roland Garros. A 1998 born vs. a 1996 born battling for the American Wild Card :)

Btw, he's addicted to the 3rd set win.

In his last 25 wins, 18 of these he went to the deciding set. WTF? Including early rounds of futures and qualifying rounds for challengers events.
 
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J

JanowiczJ

Professional
Also, Luz lost in 3 close sets against Guido Pella in the QFs of Sao Paulo's challenger. 6-4 6-7 7-5. I expected much less from him after the battle he had yesterday, they put him to play at 2pm with less than 15 hours of rest.

Anyways, he played the first two challengers of his career. Reached the semis in the first and the Quarters in the second. Moved up almost 500 positions in the ATP rankings!
 
N

Nathaniel_Near

Guest
Oz_Rocket said:
We're starting to see some good players from Asia at Australian tournaments. The Chinese 12/U boys team cleaned up at our national age championships last December and a Chinese kid won the 12/U Australian boys national singles title.

There were also a coupe of good Vietnamese kids at the AO juniors. Give it 5-10 years and I think we'll see that flow on to the WTA/ATP ranks.
Click to expand...

Very interesting...

Perhaps tennis will in some ways become the most competitive and global sport in the world? Which other sport can claim to have such a balanced and thorough mix of top level players from so many different continents and countries? Golf is global too but it's American heavy. Only Europe or South America dominate football. Chess fares well but most don't consider it a sport. Maybe swimming?

I can see tennis becoming the global sport.
 
okdude1992

okdude1992

Hall of Fame
Tiafoe down 2 breaks in the 3rd. He was in complete control of the match, but couldn't close it in the 2nd. Anybody else watching?
 
J

JanowiczJ

Professional
Hopefully he wont get injured, tho. At his age his body isn't fully developed yet and more importantly: he doesn't really know the limits of his body. Two weeks ago he played 3 sets in the 3 straight games just to qualify for the main draw of a Challenger event. Still, he managed to reach the SFs, I think. So he's playing a lot!

In the last ~45 days he played 66 sets in 25 matches. That's really crazy Hopefully he'll take a couple of weeks off before going to Europe.

He's too young to get 'tired' but he may be accumulating muscle fatigue and he doesn't even know. Or worse: tendinitis, etc.
 
J

JanowiczJ

Professional
So during timeouts of the Clips vs. Spurs game7 I just checked how many sets Djokovic played this year on BO3 matches just to see if Tiafoe numbers were really absurd and it shocked me. Djokovic played 57 sets this year on BO3 matches and 25 more in the AUS Open.

Tiafoe played more sets in a month in a half. Haha.
 
Tennis_dude101

Tennis_dude101

Professional
ATP Challenger event in An-Ning China

Gavin Van Peperzeel from Australia made it to his first ATP Challenger event in An-Ning. Lost the final to Franko Skugor 5-7, 2-6.
This run will boost him from 457 to 339 in the singles rankings! Keep up the good work Gavin!

TD

****OOPS, just realized I put this in the wrong thread, he is 23years old! :oops:
 
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stringertom

stringertom

Bionic Poster
Tennis_dude101 said:
Gavin Van Peperzeel from Australia made it to his first ATP Challenger event in An-Ning. Lost the final to Franko Skugor 5-7, 2-6.
This run will boost him from 457 to 339 in the singles rankings! Keep up the good work Gavin!

TD

****OOPS, just realized I put this in the wrong thread, he is 23years old! :oops:
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Happy for him but Gavin is 23. We have a thread (21st Century Toecutters) that beckons for great posts like this nice pickup of yours. Thanks!

And while you edited I was posting. No worries!
 
Sysyphus

Sysyphus

Talk Tennis Guru
Rublev takes out Carreno-Busta in the Qual to Rome. Respect 8)

Hopefully he wins his last match against Fabiano as well, and qualifies.
 
stringertom

stringertom

Bionic Poster
Sysyphus said:
Rublev takes out Carreno-Busta in the Qual to Rome. Respect 8)

Hopefully he wins his last match against Fabiano as well, and qualifies.
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Quinzi got bounced by Paire, 6 & 4, but two 20-year-old (almost teenagers) WCs from Italy got through 1R...Napolitano beat Melzer the Elder, 4 & 5, while Mager advanced when Kavcic retired despite a 6-4, 1-0 lead.

Coric is on court now and down a break in the first set vs another Italian WC Caruso.
 
Sysyphus

Sysyphus

Talk Tennis Guru
Yeah, whatever happened to Quinzi? Regressed a bit?

Zverev lost a tough three-setter to Mathieu today in Provence.

stringertom said:
Kozlov is in the SFs of the Orange Park FL Futures on HarTru.
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Through to the finals now :) Been winning a lot of three-setters. Granted, he hasn't played the strongest opposition, but I hope this is a sign of him finding some form again.
 
albatros_forehand

albatros_forehand

Professional
Good thread. Who knows maybe it will give some extra moral to this new generation of kids who spend more time online and therefore must be reading TW forums!
 
stringertom

stringertom

Bionic Poster
Pagoo said:
Chung Hyeon won the challenger in South Korea. Defeated Lacko 6-3, 6-1.

Guy is doing really well.
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Pretty loaded field there...Chung was only the fourth seed (Lu, Groth, Soeda above him). He didn't face a seed until the final but had straight set wins over Jenkins, Kudla, Nielsen and Zemlja prior to the final.

He plays in Seoul right away as #3 seed and faces the enigmatic Jason Jung in 1R.
 
Algo

Algo

Hall of Fame
He belongs here for the next 5 months so, Jarry lost to Romboli 76 76 in Cali, CH SF. Basically ruined a really good chance to win his first Challenger, had Lapentti waiting in the final.
I think he doesn't play this week so next for him is RG Qualys.
 
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