Ooohhh… N.B.O…
So, after these long days in which we enjoyed the triumphs of Marta Kostyuk in the pro Australian Open, I think it’s time to go back to the junior tour. Being busy writing on Kostyuk, I completely skipped the Grade 1 played in Traralgon, which prepared the Australian slam; it’s fair to spend a few words on it. The attendance was good, being the best players in the draw Liang from Taipei, the Swiss Simona Waltert and the Argentinian Carle. Yuki Naito, currently ranked 22 in the junior ranking, was seed 11: thus, the draw was very competitive indeed.
Some of the highest seeds, including the above-mentioned Waltert and Japanese Naho Sato, lost immediately; there were also some other surprises during the tournament, as the quarterfinals were reached only by four seeded players, plus Cori Gauff, who must be considered as a seeded player even if she isn’t. Among the unseeded players who reached the quarters, there are a couple of names I never heard of who indeed drew my attention: the first one is American Dalayna Hewitt, born in December 2000 and who ranked 66 at the time of the tournament: she reached the semi-finals comfortably, losing just a couple of games in the first three rounds; in the quarterfinals, she defeated Joanna Garland, from Taipei, who was the 5th seed of the tournament. Unfortunately, Dalayna retired from the semifinal, which she would have had to play against Chinese Wang. The other girl whom I want to mention seems to be equally interesting, and is the South Korean Uisung Park. She was born in 2002 and ranks already in 58th spot in the Junior Tour: so, if I am not wrong, she is the fifth highest ranked player born in such year: indeed she worth to be monitored at these early stages of the season, in which we are still looking for indications on who may become dominant in this year. In Traralgon she has beaten Vismane and Hurricane Black, but she lost badly in the quarters against Wang. She will play in the Australian Open and we will see how she will perform.
As per our friend Cori Gauff, she has lost in the semis, which is a fine result; she was dismissed by the first seed Liang and Cori’s first set was also fine, as she lost it at the tie-break. Though, it seems that she collapsed in the second set, which she lost by 6-0. We will come back on Gauff’s “collapses” in a piece to be published soon after this one (hopefully). The final of the tournament was thus Liang vs. Wang: Liang won in three sets, with the (a bit weird) score of 6-4 0-6 6-1: it seems that in the match between the two there were a bit of up and downs.
Now I want to change continent and go to Costa Rica, where the Grade 1 Copa del Café (Coffee Bowl) was played. This tournament was not exactly as strong as the one played in Australia (to use a euphemism), as the first seed was Osorio Serrano (and she is very good) but the second seed was Vanessa Ong, ranked 94. The reason why I speak about this event is that a girl who is a special favourite to me showed up after a stop due to an injury (luckily, it seems it was nothing “structural”): the New Beloved One!!! (Ooohhh… N.B.O…).
Elizabeth Mandlik, a.k.a. N.B.O., was the fourth seed and reached the semi-finals, which she lost against Osorio Serrano. It was from last Bonfiglio I did not see Elisabeth play and I managed to see the second set of her match against Serrano. I must say, Mandlik did not play great and she lost the set by 6-2 (the first one she lost it by 6-4); in particular, she was quite faulty from the baseline. Nevertheless, I observed a few features of her game which I interpreted as very good signals (even if flooded in a day which, overall, was in my view bad). First, I can confirm the elegance of her motions I observed live in Milan and which makes me like the tennis of this girl so much. Plus, eventually, I saw her playing much more vertical and going more often to the net than in Bonfiglio: she is indeed very capable in that, as her coach (former Rumanian player Trifu) claimed in the interview he released to me in May. In particular, against Osorio Serrano Mandlik played a low stop volley which just kissed the net and dropped to the other side. She apologised to her opponent due to the net touch, but I still dream of the execution of that shot. She also tried far more drop shots than in Milan, even if not all of them were precise. I have seen her volleying/drop shots skills also in other matches of her in that tournament, through which I just skimmed and which I will see when I have more time. My view is that this girl should attack also when she shouldn’t, as she is too light to effectively play just sticking to the baseline. The fact that it seems she is working in such direction makes me happy, as there is hope that we may have a fun girl to watch, who plays a tennis different from the standardised today’s one.
Now it’s of course time to concentrate on January’s main event, i.e. the Junior Australian Open, which started yesterday: there was already what I judged to be a huge upset, but I will come back on this in short time.
