British Juniors at the 2012 Australian Open

To cut a long story short both Kyle Edmund and Joshua Ward-Hibbert were knocked out at the quarter-final stage of the Junior Boys' Singles but we have British Winners in the form of the Junior Boys Doubles, with Liam Broady and Joshua Ward-Hibbert lifting up the trophy.

Congratulations to them http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/16754310.stm



Junior Boys' Single
Quarters
Kyle Edmund(7) loses to Luke Saville AUS(1)
Joshua Ward-Hibbert loses to Filip Peliwo CAN

Round Three
Kyle Edmund(7) beats K Coppejans BEL(11): 7-6(7) 6-1
Joshua Ward-Hibbert beats N Milojevic SRB(9): 6-3 6-2

Round Two
Kyle Edmund (7) beats P Toledo Bague ESP: 4-6 6-1 6-1
Luke Bambridge loses to K Uchida JPN(4): 4-6 6-7(8)
Liam Broady (3) loses to R Stanek Cze: 4-6 1-6
Joshua Ward-Hibbert beats S Napolitano ITA(8): 6-3 6-4

Round One
Kyle Edmund (7) beats Alexandre Favrot FRA: 4-6 6-4 6-1
Luke Bambridge beats Daniel Masur GER: 6-0 7-6
Liam Broady (3) beats Matteo Donati ITA: 7-5 6-3
Joshua Ward-Hibbert beats Matthew Tanza AUS: 6-1 6-2


Junior Boys' Doubles
Liam Broady + Joshua Ward-Hibbert(6) win the tournament
SF: Liam Broady + Joshua Ward-Hibbert(6) beat Andrew Harris AUS + Nick Kyrgios AUS(4)
QF: Liam Broady + Joshua Ward-Hibbert(6) beat Cagnina BEL + Monteiro BRA (2): 7-6(3) 6-3
Rnd2: Liam Broady + Joshua Ward-Hibbert(6) beat Ismailov UZB + Kalovelonis GRE: 6-2 6-2
Rnd1: Liam Broady + Joshua Ward-Hibbert(6) beat Tzuf Botzer ISR + Ram-Harel ISR: 4-6 6-2 10-7
Rnd1: Luke Bambridge + Kyle Edmund GBR(8) lose to Hossam EGY + Strobel USA: 3-6 5-7



Junior Girls' Single
None entered due to insufficient ranking.


Junior Girls' Doubles
None entered due to insufficient ranking.

NS Edmund's the one to watch out for as a year younger than Broady and a real prospect.

Not sure about Bambridge or Ward-Hibbert other than both come from the Nottingham area and have played since they were still in nappies.

Agree with newballs, Edmund can play on many surfaces whereas Broady could just be a novelty for the grass.

I don't know why Eleanor Dean isn't entered for this tournament (presumably she doesn't have a high enough junior ranking).

Eleanor is currently playing in the "Prerov - Czech Intl Junior Indoor G1" tournament where she has reached the semi-final. But she was knocked out in the semi-final by 14 year old Belinda BENCIC (SUI). Eleanor has just turned 16 years old. Perhaps the early promise that was bestowed on her has now gone? Where are the girls behind Laura Robson and Heather Watson? Surely we should be expecting a little more return from the investment that went into the LTA?

http://www.itftennis.com/juniors/tournaments/drawsheetbyround.asp?tournament=1100025781&event=1100152886&round=5

NS I guess they're like buses. Wait all day until 2 or 3 turn up at the same time.

Seriously Draper might think all is going to come up smelling of roses because of Laura and Heather. The first came gift wrapped to the UK via Singapore (OK the LTA have since had quite a lot of input) and Watson is basically a Bolliitieri product. The problem remains that we don't have sufficient numbers seeing things through to 16 plus when they would look to go on the lower level circuit.

Where are the girls behind Laura Robson and Heather Watson? Surely we should be expecting a little more return from the investment that went into the LTA?

They don't care about emerging players, they only care about increasing their salary, sorry to say this but I compare LTA to the bankers.

Widening this out to the boys and girls imagine if a raw, young Dolgopolov had turned up at an LTA academy.

They'd have dismantled his game and started again. Ruined his serve, binned his sliced backhand, ruined his forehand by insisting on proper movement ..etc ..etc. They'd then no doubt have castigated him for failing to improve having put him in the tennis equivalent of a "straightjacket" in the first place!

I have just checked the British Girls Junior rankings. It looks to be in an absolutely parlous state:

British Girls (juniors)

British Ranking	Player	ITF World Ranking
1	Katy Dunne	84
2	Eleanor Dean	127
3	Pippa Horn	220

British Boys (juniors)

British Ranking	Player	ITF World Ranking
1	Oliver Golding	3
2	George Morgan	8
3	Liam Broady	10
4	Kyle Edmund	29
5	Joshua Ward-Hibbert	93
6	Luke Bambridge	94
7	Sam Hutt	111
8	Jordan Angus	132
9	Jonathan Cornish	136
10	Evan Hoyt	176

NS Golding and Morgan aren't juniors any more.

The girs do look just a little bit thread bare.

I just took it from the LTA website. I suppose it would be too much to ask for them to keep it up to date ...

the LTA website??

Surprised Murray's name wasn't still there as well!

All four GBR boy juniors are through to the second round. Kyle Edmunds started off poorly - in the second set his overall first serve percentage dropped to 35%. He finally turned it around mainly by successfully attacking his opponents second serve. Kyle Edmunds overall match first serve percentage was 44%.

Kyle Edmund and Joshua Ward-Hibbert are through to the third round. However, Luke Bambridge (unseeded) and Liam Broady (seeded three) were knocked out. Luke Bambridge appears to have played well against the fourth seed Uchida who played just a little bit better. Liam Broady appears to have self - destructed in the heat and sun. Here are his stats:

Liam Broady(3) loses 4-6 1-6.
Stats
1st Serve% .................27%
Aces ..........................2
Double Faults .............13
Win% on 1st Serve ......71%
Win% on 2nd Serve .....43%
Receiving Pts Won .......27%

NS is that 1st serve % for real? throw in the DFs and little surprise he lost.

Mind you any junior would have trouble in that heat.

newballs wrote:NS is that 1st serve % for real? throw in the DFs and little surprise he lost.

Mind you any junior would have trouble in that heat.

stats: http://www.australianopen.com/en_AU/scores/stats/day14/9212ms.html
bbc report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/16695247.stm
someones biased blog of the match but gives indication of what happened: http://tinyurl.com/6uo6nvs

Some have said that Liam Broady's game is rather one-dimensional, so perhaps he is unable to "think" on his feet as it were during a match if his opponent has an "awkward" game plan (I am guessing here).

NS thanks for the link - thought the blog was quite an interesting read.

As to Broady being one dimensional then only time will tell. Suffice to say if he is then the transition to senior ranks will be a painful one

Both Kyle Edmund and Joshua Ward-Hibbert are through to the quarters. However Kyle faces the number one seed and Aussie Luke Saville. I have also added the relevant Doubles tournament results.

Note: Liam Broady's second round conqueror, unseeded Robin Stanek CZE, is also through to the quarters having defeated the 15th seed 6-1 6-2. Luke Bambridge's second round conqueror Kaichi Uchida(4) is also through to the quarters after a 6-3 6-3 victory.

I think the junior rankings are quite often misleading. I don't think the girls rankings really tell the whole story.

GB have not had a great 1994 group (besides Robson, who is still a junior) and thus the rankings are reflecting this. The 1995 lot are not bad without being great, but the best at the moment have to be the 1996 class. (with Eleanor Dean of course, but expect Katie Boulter and Harriet Dart to make good progress this year.)

Of course I could be wrong, and they might not go anywhere, but the rankings tend to be very fluid and can change very quickly in the space of a few events.

For information, the current rankings are:

91 DEAN, Eleanor GBR 06 January 1996 250 70 320
97 DUNNE, Katy GBR 16 February 1995 255 50 305
129 SELLYN, Georgina GBR 23 May 1994 210 45 255
210 HORN, Pippa GBR 30 September 1995 155 21.25 176.25
223 BOULTER, Katie GBR 01 August 1996 130 40 170
247 DART, Harriet GBR 28 July 1996 135 26.25 161.25

Thanks for the more up to date information and the perspective. The other thing that is difficult to judge is the whole growing up process in the juniors, with changes in both physical, mental and social dimensions. There is also the need for continuing education and choices on careers (professional career in tennis(?) + back up career choices - medicine(?), business, law, sports science, languages, would perhaps dovetail best).

JWH and Broady won the doubles by the way.

djlovesyou wrote:JWH and Broady won the doubles by the way.

That's excellent news and having had two Brits reach the quarters of the junior boys singles that makes quite a good if not excellent overall "return", although one might have hoped one (out of the four entered) would have reached the semi. Let's hope the girls can take inspiration from the boys "work"