During the first three weeks of October, in Bol (Croatia), three consecutive 10k events are taking place; the first one was won by Gabriela Pantuckova, the second ended last Sunday and its winner was the 15 year old Slovenian Kaja Juvan (she will turn 16 in one month or so), who managed, thus, to gain her first pro ITF title.
Kaja is well known in the junior circuit, since she currently ranks 18, being able to climb up to 15 soon after having reached the finals in Grade A Trofeo Bonfiglio, her most significant result in singles in a junior tournament to date. Since, of course, this Magazine focuses mostly on junior players, Kaja’s victory is a good occasion to write a few lines on what happened during Bol’s tournament and to focus a bit more on Kaja Juvan’s features as a player.
Best ranked players joining the event were Gabriela Pantuckova (308 WTA) from Check Republic, Tena Lukas (327 WTA) from Croatia, Anna Bondar (366 WTA) from Hungary. Kaja was a qualifier, having at that date no WTA ranking. Though being a qualifier Kaja’s win cannot be described as unexpected since, besides having a noticeable junior ranking, she already reached the finals in the 10k tournament played in Velenje (Slovenia) in June 2016, having been beaten by Gabriela Pantuckova in 3 sets (4-6 6-2 6-0). Though, it’s the manner in which Kaja won Bol’s tournament which was to me really surprising.
In the three qualification matches she has lost only 5 games overall; though, she played against players who were supposed – and have proven – to be weaker than her. Thus: strong and consistent performance by Kaja, but not even such results can be defined as surprising.
After easily defeating in the first round 17 year old Polish Marcelina Podlinska 6-2 6-1 (again, foreseeable win), the time for the first challenging match arrived: in the second round she was scheduled to play against Magdalena Pantuckova (who is the sister of the above-mentioned Gabriela) ranked 451 WTA. Again, no problems at all for Kaja, who managed to win 6-3 6-1. A further serious test came in the quarter finals, against Lea Boskovic, a Croatian 17 year old girl with a respectable junior ranking of 62: Kaja managed to win also this match 6-3 6-1 and to reach the semi-finals, having lost, overall, only 16 games in 6 matches played.
The other semifinalists were the first 3 seeds, all of them mentioned above: Gabriela Pantuckova would have had to play Kaja, whilst Anna Bondar was scheduled to play against second seed Tena Lucas. The latter match, though, was never played, since Lukas won by a walkthrough. The one against Pantuckova was the only one of Kaja’s matches that resulted to be tight, at least in the first set, which Kaja won 7-5 at the tie-break (being down 4-2). The second set was easier though, and Juvan won it by 6-3, without facing particular troubles. In the finals she met, thus, Tena Lukas, easily dismissed by 6-3 6-1.
The young Slovenian girl was able to win first ITF Pro tournament, starting from the qualifications, without losing a set; she struggled only for 1 set in the overall tournament, a set which she anyway managed to win. This is already something to take note of. But the truly surprising fact is that only 4 months ago, to reach the finals in Velenje (playing against some of the opponents she also met in Bol) she faced much more troubles: not only she lost to G. Pantuckova in the finals gaining two games overall after having won the first set (to be fair it must be said that on the same day she played the finals, Kaja also played one set and a half of her semies, that were adjourned due to bad weather), but also in previous matches she went through some troubles, winning against Magdalena Pantuckova in the first round by 6-3 7-5 and beating in the second round Karoline Kurz (809 WTA ranking) in three sets, by 7-5 in the decider.
What is really surprising is the much higher consistency that Juvan showed during the Bol tournament compared to the Velenje event (and to the tournaments which followed Velenje, as we will see). Of course I did not see a single match of Bol and Velenje, but from the stats it appears that such positive evolution in Kaja’s performances seems not to be due to luck or just better form; but to improvements in the effectiveness of her first serve, which led to a better ratio of points won after having hit a valid first serve.
Much of Kaja’s style was anticipated one and a half year ago by Franco Marucci who, thanks to his prophetic skills (!), noted this girl, ranking at the time not even in the top 1500 Junior ITF. Having seen Kaja twice whilst she was playing in Milan, I can only confirm what Franco wrote; I would only add to his description that Kaja is a greatly skilled volleyer (not surprisingly, considering her ability in executing drop shots) – as Gianni Clerici would write, she owns a Holy Hand -. Following all these praises, it’s also fair to add that I find her serve to be shaky. The swing is very elegant, but the shot lacks power. I don’t think a great load of work can be done to close the power gap between Kaja and other players such as Jastremska, Pervushina or Potapova; Kaja will never become a Serena Williams or a Muguruza kind of player; nevertheless she manages to compete with, and sometimes to win against, more powerful opponents, relying mostly on her deep understanding of the game (and on her Holy Hand).
Focusing again on Kaja’s serve, what happened in Velenje is that, even in matches which she managed to win, for sure her first serve was not as effective as Ivanisevic’s: in most of her matches Kaja was not able to win more than 55% of the points when hitting the first serve in.
Then clay season ended, Kaja went to play a Grade 1 in Roehampton, followed by Wimbledon and by the US Open and things got worse; whilst she performed well in doubles (thanks to the Holy Hand?), reaching, paired with Iga Swiatek, the semifinals in these tournaments, in singles she always lost in the first round showing serve stats that were, to put it lightly, quite dubious. She lost to Stefanini in Wimbledon showing 69% first serves in and only 50% of points gained – and most notably in the first set she managed to win only 29% of points on first serve (4 over 14!), backed by a 27% in the third set (3 over 11!). As an off topic, I would also add that against Stefanini she went for the net 35 times, winning 24 of the points – a figure I was proud of-.
Similar stats can be found in her US Open game lost with Wang: 61% of first serves in, 46% of points realised. Serving for Kaja was becoming definitely a disadvantage at this stage.
And then the unexpected happens: clay tournaments starting again, we finally arrive in Bol and serve stats swiftly change as you would be able to check by looking at them.
Compared to most of the matches played in Velenje, the percentage of points won on first serve increased by 10-15% (never falling below 63%), which is all she needs to find consistency: one of the features of Kaja’s game is her ability to return: she is always able to break her opponents (including good servers as Pervushina) a couple of times per set. If she can stick to this kind of serve stats, reaching at least a 60% of points won when hitting valid first serves, indeed her game can really boost and, in my opinion, she may be able to reach the top ten junior ranking.
So, everything solved for Kaja? Of course not; there is still much to work on for her, and even more for her coach, the Slovenian Robert Cokan. First, all the improvements shown last week must be confirmed: she can try to do that immediately, in the 3rd Bol 10k event, in which she is scheduled to play today (no qualifications this time). Further, Kaja’s performances on surfaces different from clay must be improved. The gap between her performances on clay and on other surfaces is evident: as far as I know, this year Kaja was not able to win a single match on fast courts.
In any case, I doubt she will ever be as physically powerful as her best opponents are, and she might find hard times due to that. Though, Kaja’s recent results, and the improvements which in my opinion led to her win in Bol, may be a demonstration that it is still possible to play highly competitive tennis relying more on technique and tactical skills instead than on physical power. I hope her future career will reward her for the quality of tennis she can express; in any case, however it will go, take for granted that I will continue to follow Kaja Juvan: congrats for your first victory as a professional player, my young friend!
Tommy Hemp
