Asian players have a strong day at the Junior OB tennis tournament

Although the Junior Bowl International Tennis Championships have been held in South Florida for the past 61 years, the prestigious USTA Level 2 tournament has taken on a Far Eastern flavor as it heads into the later rounds.

On Salvadore Park clay, No. 1-ranked Takei Takizawa, who is a native of Tokyo but has been playing in Australia since moving to Australia as a 2-year-old, beat No. 9 Daniil Berezen, who trains with Rick Macci in Boca Raton, 6-y.o. 3, 7-5 to reach the semifinals.

The stocky 5-10 left-hander, who won the singles match at the Level 2 Eddie Herr International Championships in Bradenton earlier this month, has not dropped a set in his five matches. He broke Berezens serve to avoid a second-set tiebreak with three huge ground winners.

He raised his level and I struggled up and down a little bit,” Takizawa said. I finally got over it. At the end of game 5-6, I started switching heads. I won the game earlier, so I was already in a positive mood.

Takizawa will face Donjae Kim after the Korean ninth seed upset Atlanta native No. 4 Tomas Lauky 6-2, 6-4. Laukys, a lanky 6-foot-1 left-hander who has moved to France to train, nailed an easy volley to break at 4-4.

In the lower quarterfinals, India’s Tavish Pahwa bounced back to win 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 against Advay Singh, who lives in Frisco, Texas, where he trains with coach Dave Licker.

Pahwa, ranked No. 1 in his country after playing in the national singles and doubles tournaments, used his three-minute coaching break between sets to have a conference call with his father Gaurev and his coach in India. It paid dividends.

I want to be number one in the world and win the most Grand Slams, said Pahwa when he made his first trip to America.

There is an American hopeful in the final four as No. 2 seed Tuck Tabb of Birmingham, Alabama, continued to dominate all players in a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Aran Selvarassan of Anglo-Indian descent. The lanky, 5-9 Tabb, who lost to Herr in the finals, hasn’t allowed more than three runs in any of his five starts.

“I’ve played a lot of good players, but I played really well all week and I’m trying to stay balanced with my core, especially my placement,” he said.

A versatile athlete, Tuck chose to focus on tennis because he could rely on himself and not his teammates.

“When I was 9 or 10, I won my first tournament and I loved tennis,” said Tuck, who has never played Pahwa. I was usually a passer and didn’t get any run support as I usually held people back from running. My team didn’t get a single hit. Tennis is up to me.

There is an Asian influence among the 14-year-old boys on the hard courts at Crandon Park, where top-ranked Sehyuk Cho of Korea, the winner of the Men’s 14s, has yet to drop a set. He cruised into the final in eighth place, where he will face seventh-ranked Taiwan’s Kuan-Shou Chen. Chinas Weiyi Kong (17) knocked out Romanian Yannick Alexandrescu in three sets in ninth place.

Well. 3 Ivan Ivanov from Bulgaria has not challenged yet. Ninth-seeded American Jack Secord upset No. 5 Vito Antonio Darder in three sets, which may not help the ratings of the ongoing Italian top junior documentary.

In the bottom half, Long Islands’ Jack Kennedy, the sixth seed, has taken full advantage of the late withdrawals of the second and fourth seeds as he cruised past Canada’s Xavier Massotte 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7). -1).

In the girls’ 12s Crandon, players from the Far East continued their rise with Korea’s 2nd Yeri Hong, Pakistan’s Haniya Minhas 3rd, Japan’s Yui Komada 4th and China’s Sun Xinran in the quarterfinals. The Russian Christina Lyutova, who is training outside of Seattle at her best, will face Boca Raton’s Asian-American Caroline Shao on Sunday.

Asia’s dominance continued in the girls’ 14 round of 16 on the hard courts of the Biltmore Tennis Center, where second-placed Yihan (Sophia) Qu of China 6-2 grabbed a 1-4 victory in the third set to overtake Spain. Polina Kuharenko, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4.

Qu, 13, who in his first trip to the US won the Herr 14s and is alive in the junior version of the Sunshine Sweep. The two tall teenagers slugged it out from the baseline with steady, warp-speed groundstrokes until Qu was double-faulted for her third match point.

“I just focused on every shot and game, I’m doing my best and I’m not putting too much pressure on myself,” Qu said through translator Sen Han, a liaison at the IMG Tennis Academy (Bradenton), where he has been training this month. I love tennis because of the rhythm, the rallies and the sound it makes when it bounces off the tennis racket. Its relaxing.

He has a big pass, a big palm and a big heart, said Hong Lue, coach of the Qus China Association.

Top seed Hannah Klugman of Britain, who attends Wimbledon High School in her hometown, won 6-0, 6-0 against No. 9 Nicole Okhtenberg, who lives and trains in Boca Raton at the Evert Tennis Academy.

I play positive after my shots, I’m relaxed, I’m just here to enjoy it, said Klugman, who hasn’t allowed more than two runs in four games heading into the quarterfinals.

Klugman, 13, gained four inches at 5-7 when he played here last year. In July, he received a wild card in the main match of Junior Wimbledon on an outdoor grass court against 18-year-olds. This will be his last 14s tournament as Klugman plans to play the ITF 18s next year.

Australia’s Emerson Jones also advanced to the quarters, after dropping six straight games in the second set, he focused on winning 6-4, 2-6, 6-1 over Julieta Pareja of Los Angeles, who was the winner. USTA 14s National Clay Courts last summer.

Fellow Aussie Kim Cooper fell 6-2, 6-1 to Maria Aytoyan (9), an American Armenian who has been training with Everts for the past two years.

Russian 13-year-old Dynamo Ksenia Efremova (6), who lives in France, where she trains at the Patrick Mouratoglou Tennis Academy, defeated Abigail Gordon, who lives in Boca Raton, where she trains with former Evert, 6-1, 6-1. coach Mandy Wilson. 4th Adelina Lachinova from Latvia and 7th Luna Maria Cinalli from Argentina advanced as well.