Let’s continue the resumè on the results the top junior players achieved on the Pro Tour during this beginning of 2017: you can find the first part of this article, focusing on other three players, here: https://www.tennisunderworld.it/2017/03/10/kaja-ad-kaylam-anastasiae-anastasem/.
Before getting started, though, I would like to apologise to the readers (with a bit of embarrassment on my side) due to the fact that, focusing my attention on 10Ks and 25Ks, I did not realise the tiny circumstance that, just before I was writing my former article, Kayla Day (on whom I wrote, it seems, a bit too little) won the first round in Indian Wells against Kurumi Nara; later on she beat Lucic-Baroni and thus qualified for the third round, which she has just lost against Garbiñe Muguruza in three sets. The last paragraph of this article shows a few stats on the two matches Kayla won; I will write a piece dedicated only to Kayla in the next few days, in which I will speak about the match she played against Garbiñe Muguruza.
Let’s go back to the main topic, by focusing, as a start, on Rebeka Masarova: though, currently on her there’s nothing to say, really, since she hasn’t yet played on the Pro Tour during 2017: quite interestingly, it seems that Masarova is undertaking choices opposed to those made by the other top juniors: as we said, most of them, such as Kayla Day, but also younger ones such as Swiatek (who will play another 15K in two weeks in Le Havre after her win in Bergamo – you can find an article on her tournament on this website), Potapova, Juvan, Pervushina, Andreescu etc., seem in the process of shifting (partially or totally) from the Junior Tour to the Pro Tour. This does not seem to apply to the same degree to Rebeka, despite the fact that she is one of the “oldest” members of the Junior Tour: she seems still to prefer to divide her calendar between the Junior and the Pro Tour, according a little preference to the former. Last year Rebeka has played 8 events on the Pro Tour, participating to higher level tournaments, such as 25Ks or even 100Ks: she didn’t achieve noticeable results (she never won two matches in a row), but for the only WTA event she played, in Gstaad, where she was granted with a wild card: here she was amazing by reaching the semies, having beaten Beck and Jankovic in the process. In the meantime, she competed in 10 events on the Junior Tour, and managed to win the Junior Roland Garros. The first Pro event Rebeka played in 2016 was in the second half of February and her second one was in April. Up to now in 2017 has played only on the Junior Tour, competing in the Australian Open (where she reached the finals, which I have commented on this website) and the Traralgon Junior, the Grade 1 preceding the AO. Let’s see if in 2017 she will continue to dedicate most of her efforts to the Junior Tour or if she will focus more on the Pro Tour, as her peers are doing.
Then, Olesya Pervushina: during 2016 she played quite a lot on the Pro Tour, achieving very good results: she has won a 10K in Santa Margherita di Pula and a 25K in Leipzig – which allowed her to gain a ranking of 433 at the end of the year; she played very well also on the Junior Tour, dominating the first part of the season (she won, inter alia, the Italian Open and reached the semis in Roland Garros and Wimbledon). In this first quarter of 2017 Olesya reached her best ranking of 373; nevertheless the results she obtained up to now are quite dubious. She has played two 15K events in Antalya, in which she dropped out both times in the quarter finals, losing by players ranking higher than her and not showing particularly impressive highest rankings: in the first event, she lost in three sets by Kovalets (currently ranking 452, and showing a highest ranking of 243) whilst in the second one she was clearly defeated (1-6 4-6) by Alona Fomina, a 27 year old Ukrainian player currently ranked 543 WTA, which is also her best ranking. Then, Olesya was granted with a wild card for the qualifications of the St. Petersburg WTA Premier event, though she lost 2-6 4-6 in the first round against Martincova, currently ranked 165 WTA. Finally, she played a 25K in Moscow, losing in the second round of the qualifications against 18 year old Russian Kruzhkova, showing a current ranking of 704 WTA and a best junior ranking of 40. So, not a great start of 2017 for her: one must just wait and see what her future plans are and if she can get her form back. Let’s keep in mind, anyway, that Pervushina is only 16 year old (nearly 17) and she has all the time she needs to reach again the great levels of last year and, of course, improve even more.
Last (but not least) player of the six to speak about is Amanda Anisimova, another girl born in 2001, as Potapova and Andreescu, and who is as promising as the latter. Unlike the others juniors I have written about, Anisimova gained virtually no experience at all in the Pro Tour during 2016, playing only 1 event. Though, she started quite big and already, in this only occasion, she performed amazingly well: she has been granted a wild card for the qualifications of 2016 US open, in which she managed to defeat quite easily in the first round (winning by 6-3 6-4) Cepede Royg, a 25 year old player from Venezuela currently ranking 126 in the world and with a high career ranking of 111 reached in October 2016: not the easiest venue and opponent, thus, to debut on the Pro Tour! She then lost her following match against Hozumi, battling till the tie break of the third set.
The second experience of Amanda in the Pro Tour – and the first Pro event she played in 2017 – was again a big tournament: she has been granted a wild card for the qualifications of a 100,000K held in the US, where she managed to win two matches, reaching the third round of the qualis, in which she lost in three sets by Katherine Sebov, a Canadian ranked top 300 WTA. To be fair, the first match Anasimova won was against a player without a Pro ranking, whilst her second opponent ranked around 500: so, not particularly tough opponents for her. Her third and up to now last experience on the Pro Tour was in the 25K in Brazil which I mentioned in my previous article and in which she reached the finals, starting from the qualifications. As we know, she was defeated in three sets by Anastasia Potapova, but until then she has dropped, overall, only 15 games in 6 matches she played. In particular, she easily beat top 200 Monserrat Gonzales in the second round, Daniela Seguel, currently ranking 236 WTA, in the quarters and the top 100 Irina Khromacheva in the semis. Through this recent result, Anisimova will obtain 15 points and reach a WTA ranking of around 630.
Let’s conclude, as anticipated, with a few details on the amazing tournament Kayla Day is playing in Indian Wells: in the first round she beat Kurumi Nara, currently ranking 85 WTA, in two sets (6-3 6-4). In this match Day didn’t show fantastic serve stats (45% of first serves in with only 58% of points won and 39% of points won on second serve): she broke 5 times and conceded 11 break points. Though, she could handle very well her opponent’s serve, winning 61% of the points on first returns and 62 on second returns, and she managed to break the Japanese girl for 8 times. It seems that Kayla served a lot better in the match she won against Lucic Baroni, scoring 7 aces, hitting 53% of valid first serves and obtaining 74% of points from them. More, when hitting second serves, Kaya managed to obtain 58% points (and this is also a really good stat). The stats of Kayla Day and Lucic Baroni are basically in line: the only (non-material) difference between the two has been on the second serve, with which Lucic won 50% of the points; overall, Kayla has won two more points than Lucic Baroni (106-104). I did not see the match and I can’t tell, in particular, how Lucic Baroni performed. In any case, Kayla Day played a perfectly levelled match against the Croatian, meaning that at 17 Kayla Day is able to battle evenly against one of the strongest players in the world, and, eventually, to beat her by 6-4 5-7 7-5. It seems that this girl is a pre-destined of tennis; or, at least, for sure, she has not suffered the shift from the Junior Tour to the Pro’s.
Tommy Hemp
