Someone I know always teases me due to my love for stats: he will be frustrated to know that the checks I carried out on the stats of Tennisunderworld managed to make me realise (and I was honoured to acknowledge) that a visit to Tennisunderworld came from the website of a player about whom I have already spoken a little in a recent article (focused on – guess who? – Kaja Juvan!), highlighting that such player, Helene Pellicano, is to be considered one of the most promising ones born in 2002.
I was curious and I gave a glim to Pellicano’s website: it happened that in the news’ section I found the following, dated 23 February of this year: “It’s official: by next week I will start a new growth path in Valencia (Spain) in the Academy of Mr. Pablo Lozano”.
This was a both bitter and sweet news to me: bitter because – lacking a bit, currently, of top notch Junior players in Italy (even if there are a couple of interesting ones born in 2002-2003, to be fair) – I considered Pellicano to be a bit Italian herself, due to three main reasons: 1) Malta is close to Italy – and that applies also to Slovenia; 2) Pellicano is a surname which sounds Italian; 3) most importantly, Pellicano used to train in Italy, under the guidance of Fabio Lavazza. It seems that the third and most important factor grounding my national pride has now vanished. The news, though, was also sweet, since Pablo Lozano, her new coach, is the former and “historical” coach of adorable Sara Errani, having him trained the latter since she was the age of 17, until few months ago.
Let’s then take this occasion to share a few more details on Helene Pellicano: the girl is only 14 and does not own any Pro Tour experience. As per the Junior Tour, she is very precocious: she currently ranks in 130th spot, being the 8th highest ranked player born in 2002; as per Tennis Europe circuit, her ranking is 10.
Focusing on Helene’s results on the Junior Tour, in February she has lost in the first round of the Grade A held in Porto Alegre, against American Hailey Baptiste (ranked 47); in the last week of January, though, she has won the doubles event in the Grade 1 Asuncion Bowl, partnering with Fernanda Labrana, even if in the singles she was again defeated in the first round, as it also happened in the last two tournaments she played before the Asuncion Bowl, i.e. the Orange Bowl and the Eddie Herr (you can find a few details on her matches in the article I referred to above). In lower graded tournaments, though, she has already obtained top notch results: Helene reached in last July the semis at the Grade 2 TC Bakkum Dutch Junior Open (starting from the qualifications) and she won in May the Grade 4 Montenegro Open, just after having reached the semies in another Grade 4, the ITF Gjovik Porsche Open.
Pellicano has debuted on the Junior ITF already in 2015, having competed in 4 events and having reached the semifinals in two Grade 5, the UAE Fujairah Junior Cup (in which she won the doubles event) and the Babolat Cup.
Not much more I can say up to now on this now even less Italian girl, whom I never seen playing but on who I heard very high appreciations.
I copy below the news I found on her website, which gave me the hint to write this short piece on her, being sure that I will write others in the next future and hoping I will soon have to opportunity to see her playing.
“First of all I would like to thank coach Fabio Lavazza for helping me to grow both personally, physically and athletically and to obtain excellent results. A word of thanks also goes to physical coach Enio Capano for his time and dedication. My gratitude also goes to Gaia Garello Luca for all the assistance he provided me with throughout my entire journey here. Finally I must show my appreciation towards the tennis club in Solaro and all the beautiful people that lifted me up with all their support and encouragement.I hope all my fans will support me to continue to dream together…..
Helene Pellicano”
