In Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, the town I am originally from, we have this long holyday which lasts one month: it starts from the end of the French Open and ends just after Wimbledon; during this period it is forbidden to us to carry out any sort of working or leisure activity: one is allowed only to sleep. I thus enjoyed a comfortable period by complying with my social duties, but of course, I could not write about tennis. after this break I felt tired and left for a long holyday. But now I am back, for the pleasure of my four readers.
In light of the above, let’s shortly recap what happened in the last couple of months starting from, surprise, surprise, the Beloved One: I am always impartial when I write. Between June and July, Kaja Juvan has won all that she didn’t achieve in the first part of the season, and namely: she won a 15k pro event held in Maribor, then reached the finals in Roehampton, her first big result achieved on a surface different from clay; shortly after she was beaten by Flagellum Dei in the first round in the singles event in Wimbledon (fair enough) but she managed to win the doubles event, paired with Olga Danilovic; finally, she won the grade B1 Europan Junior Championship, beating in the process both the above-mentioned Danilovic and Flagellum Dei. One observation which connects to my last article on Juvan: I assume – but I am not certain, since I am not an expert on Slovenian education system – that the girl achieved these great results during her summer vacations, i.e. no school duties to comply with: not a surprise that, being a bit more relaxed, the girl could fully exploit her great talent.
Though, let’s be honest: even better results than my girl’s ones were achieved in this period by American Claire Liu: in May she won two25k pro events and reached the semi-finals in a 60k event; she has then, as we know, reached the finals in the French Open and, immediately after, won Roehampton (having beaten Kostyuk in the semifinal and the Beloved One in the final). Finally, she reached the peak and grabbed the singles event in Wimbledon: quite positive results for her, indeed! Following these stunning achievements, Liu ranks in top 300 on the WTA tour and 1st on the Junior Tour. Further, Claire is currently competing in the qualifications of the women tournament in the U.S. Open: she easily passed through the first round, having won against the young American Caroline Dolehide (159 WTA); she will find in the second round Sesil Karatantcheva.
Other junior girls attempted the U.S. open pro qualifications, and namely: Amanda Anisimova, Anne Li, Bianca Andreescu (who recently reached the quarter finals in Washington, having beaten Camila Giorgi and Kristina Mladenovic in the process) and Whitney Osuigwe (the winner of the French Open); all of them lost in the first round. Catherine McNally managed, instead, to win her match , having beaten Polina Monova (173 WTA), and reach the second round: she is scheduled to play against Anna Karolina Schmiedlova.
But now I want to draw my attention on the main topic of this article: i.e. Cori Gauff. I did not know anything about this girl until yesterday, when it was pointed out to me by a friend. Gauff was born in March 2004, she currently ranks over 900 on the Junior Tour and around 220 on the Tennis Europe tour. This year she reached the semi-finals of the Petits As beating in the process the very strong Croatian Noa Krznaric (whom I mentioned in some recent articles). The reason why I am focusing on Cori is that the results she is achieving on the ITF Junior Tour are stunning: she was granted a wild card in Roehampton where she reached the second round, having easily dismissed British Estheer Adeshina in her first match (6-1 6-2 was the score) and losing the following one against Branstine, by 2-6 2-6. Cori then competed in Wimbledon (again, she was granted a wild card for the qualification draw) and, again, she managed to win a match, before losing in three set by Maja Chwalinska, one of the best under 16 players in Europe. The girl is currently competing in a grade 1 held in the United States and: guess what? She reached the semi-finals, having left only few games to each opponent she fought against: in the first round she has beaten by 6-4 6-3 Italian Monica Cappelletti (a top 100, aging 5 years more than Cori); then she demolished by 6-2 6-2 top 40 Camila Rakhimova; the same happened to top 10 American Taylor Johnson, who was dismissed by 6-2 6-3. Finally, Cori has beaten another top 20, Liang from Taipei: the score was 6-1 6-2. In the semi-finals Cori is scheduled to play Alina Chareva, another top 40 from Russia, born in 2002. However this match will end, Cori has proven to be able to beat top 20 players of the junior tour aging 3 or 4 years more than her. Quite worrying, actually.
I have watched a few games of the semifinals match of the Petits As, that Cori played and lost against Ukrainian Dasha Lopatetskaja: Cori is black and she has a huge frame; I can’t give many details on her game since, for sure, I would need to watch her for longer than 15 minutes to write something sensible (and I won’t do this since I am too tired and I will leave for further holidays in some minutes): from what I saw, she belongs to the category of the “-ovas/inas”; she can serve up to 170 kmph, even if she often prefers to hit her first serve at around 140; she is very powerful both with forehand and backhand and, of course, being so young, she is immature and misses some shots; Cori’s feature that, from the brief glim I gave to the match, caught the most my is her outstanding defensive skills and athleticism: she runs and runs and recovers everything, everywhere. And you know what? I even saw a couple of drop shots attempts which were not bad at all and a couple of attacks to the net (not always great). She may be more than an “-ova”, but I leave more complete evaluations for the future.
