After the French Open I enjoyed a well-deserved holyday. Though I missed some very good results of two girls who are within my favourites (as their nicknames suggest): the Beloved One and the New Beloved One (i.e. Kaja Juvan and Elli Mandlik: I hope I don’t have to specify this anymore, do I?).
I am very happy because I have great trust in the qualities of these girls; both of them, though, up to now, have disappointed me a bit for different reasons, even if I’ve always believed that it was just a matter of time for them to achieve good results.
Kaja Juvan, who is the player who aroused my interest in junior tennis when I saw her playing in Bonfiglio two years ago, had a very good junior career; though, up to little time ago her results on the pro tour didn’t meet the expectations (at least mine!!). The best players against whom Kaja has competed on the junior tour (and whom she sometimes have beaten) during the last 15 months have achieved very good results also on the pro tour (or even WTA of in slams events): I am referring to, of course, Kostyuk and Anisimova in the first place, but also Danilovic, Swiatek, Andreescu, to a certain extent Potapova (even if the latter suffers from ups and downs, alternating finals in 100ks and early losses in 25ks) and others. Juvan instead, maybe also due to her peculiar tennis style which does not rely so much on power, faced more troubles: from February 2017 to March 2018 she has achieved as a best result on the pro tour only a quarterfinal in a 25k in S.M. Pula. Ok, in the meantime she has won a 15k; though, honestly 15k are not particularly significant. During last year Kaja kept losing one match over two against players ranked between 400th and 500th spot. I saw my Beloved One only in a few streaming during the last year and a half, whilst the only time I saw Kaja live was in Budapest; thus, I can’t express a meaningful judgement. Nevertheless, for sure in Budapest Kaja played a fantastic match against the Immortal Patty Schnider; one of those matches that I will not forget. More, last November she reached the final in the Junior Masters by dismissing most of her peers with ease and, even if she eventually lost, she forced Kostyuk to face quite a few troubles. It was quite a mystery to me how a girl, who managed to easily beat some of the best juniors and be competitive against the very best of them, to show in Budapest fantastic tennis – honestly playing at a different level compared to the girls I saw in Bonfiglio this year –, was also able to lose so many matches against some unknown Indian players or some players who do not even seriously compete on the tour. After Budapest, Kaja played three more fully disappointing tournaments in S.M. Pula. Then, possibly, something in the mind of the Slovenian has clicked: during the last month or so Juvan won a first 25k in Hungary and reached the final in the following one (still played in Hungary) winning, overall, 9 matches in a row. To achieve this result Kaja didn’t have to beat any outstanding player, as she had to face only one top 300 (i.e. German Anna Zaja). More, in the final she lost Kaja was not able to offer particular resilience against the first stronger player she met, i.e. Sabina Sharipova, a top 150 ranked girl: Kaja was defeated quite clearly by 4-6 2-6.[1] After a semifinal reached in a further 25k in Uzbekistan the girl moved to Sweden, where she won a her second 25k; this time, though, in the semi-finals, for the first time she was able to beat a top 200, i.e. Rumanian Irina Bara– the result was 6-1 7-5 in favour of the Slovenian-. The following tournament was, instead, not as good, as Kaja lost in the quarter finals a match that possibly she could have won. Anyhow, Juvan has recently proved that currently, not only she has become much more consistent against players ranked about the 300th 400th spot, and this is hugely important to allow her to achieve a decent ranking; also, her win against Bara and her match against Schnider prove that Kaja is able to compete against players ranked around 150th spot. I suppose the time came for the young Slovenian to leave (at least partly) the swamp of 25k – even more if they are not strong– and try to challenge more often top 200 players, or even some top 100, from time to time, maybe just to test herself; it’s time for her to try some 60k and 100k. Her perspectives have now changed, as following these recent results Juvan will place herself around 250th spot of the ranking, becoming one of the 6-7 best ranked juniors on the pro tour: she thus reached the level she was supposed to and now she can take her time to further step up, without disappointing anyone (including myself) if it takes 6 months longer for her compared to some of her peers.
Ooohh… N.B.O….
Let’s now switch to the junior tour and, in particular to N.B.O.
To be clear, Mandlik’s (a.k.a. N.B.O.) background has nothing to do with Juvan’s. I literally felt in love with Mandlik when I saw her playing in Milan but, up to now, differently from the Slovenian, she has achieved no particularly significant result on the junior tour, except for a final in a Grade 1 which, though, was so weak that actually worthed as a Grade 3. Per se this is not worrying as Mandlik is so small that, even more than Juvan, she needs longer time than her peers to become competitive. Though, during this last year Mandlik has suffered harsh losses against players who she was really supposed to beat (or, at least, against whom she was not supposed to lose so clearly) such as Sorokko, Collins, Harvey or Lancelot: I found those quite continuous bad results fairly disappointing. During the last month N.B.O. has competed in two Grades 1 in Germany which were true Grade 1, as the draws were quite competitive: she has beaten players as Custic, Pachkaleva, Medvedeva –who I saw in Bonfiglio- and she has lost by an inch against a good player as Lea Ma. Mandlik has reached a final and a semifinal in the two German tournaments, possibly obtaining the best results in her career and, indeed, achieving her best ranking: she has now become a top 50. It would be important for her, in the next future, to confirm these good results – something that she is already doing in a 15k in Romania, in which she has won two matches, having beaten opponents who, ok, might have been weak, but with very clear scores; by contrast, as said, until only one month ago it wasn’t unusual for Elli to lose against weaker players. Maybe it’s time also for N.B.O. to step up and I would be happy if she manages to because, even if I don’t know if the girl will become a real strong player, in my view she plays some of the most beautiful tennis one can currently see on the junior tour.
Finally, the 1st qualification round has been played in Roehampton, but it was not good at all. Even if the entry list showed an attendance nearly as good as Wimbledon’s only 13 players of the 32 in the quali draws were not British and most of the British girls who played were just not good enough. As a consequence, most of the matches ended with scores as 6-0 6-2 or similar. We will update you on this tournament during next week.
[1] This is, though, an assumption based only on the final score, which does not always reflect how close a match actually was.
