Let’s continue our analysis of the 2017 ITF Junior Masters held in Chengdu, which ended last Sunday. Of course, as usual, I will deal only with the girls’ tournament. You can find in my last article some preliminary information on this event and also some concerns I expressed about a certain lack of information which, in my view, characterised the same.
The tournament did not involve the top-top junior players, in some case because, having dropped the Junior Tour (I refer to Andreescu, Kayla Day, Potapova and so on), they didn’t have the required ranking to qualify for it or, in some other cases, simply because they chose not to compete, even if they were entitled to (this is the case of, in particular, Anisimova and Liu).
The consequence of the above was that the draw was split in two: the event was attended by a group of top-notch players born in 2002 (Kostyuk and Osuigwe) or quasi-top notch older players (Juvan in first place, then Carle and Rybakina) and by a group of players whom I judge to be a bit weaker, such as Arango, Wang or Sewing. To be clear: these latter 3 girls ranked from position 9 to 11 in the Road to Chengdu Ranking, so they fully deserved to compete in the event; nevertheless, I find that, considering the top-notch tournament they competed in, they did not achieve results as outstanding as their opponents’.
The composition of the round robins was not straightforward itself: I guess one group was composed by seeds 1-3-6-8, the other group by the remaining ones, but I could not verify this since the seeding of each player was not clarified and it was not clear to me if the Road to Chengdu Ranking or the Junior Ranking had to be taken into account to determine the composition of the groups and if and how the pro ranking was to be taken into any account (as it is to determine the seeds of the other Junior tournaments) – ok, to be fair, I did not put too much effort in trying to solve this little puzzle as I did not review the rules to establish the seeding in the Junior ITF tournaments.
The tournament was covered by a very good live-score system and by a live video too: the latter though I could never access, I assume due to territorial restrictions (i.e. I think it was visible only in China, but I did not try too hard, to be honest).
Anyway, the above-mentioned gap between the players was evident in day 1: Juvan won 6-0 6-1 against Osorio Serrano, Kostyuk beat Wang with the same result and Rybakina beat Sewing by 6-2 6-1. Osuigwe vs. Carle was a bit more tight and ended with the score of 6-2 6-4 in favour of the American. Also in day 2 no major upsets occurred, with the favourite girls winning their opponents (even there were no crushing results as those registered in day 1). The only tight match was, unsurprisingly, Rybakina vs. Carle: the Argentinian won by 6-4 6-7 6-3. This result was predictable, in my view, since I consider the two girls to be basically equally strong. In day 2, Osuigwe also dropped a set against Sewing, but she won the following two by 6-1 6-2.
The third day was the most interesting of the round robin, since the matches Osuigwe vs. Rybakina and Kostyuk vs. Juvan were scheduled. Both of the matches went as I expected: Osuigwe managed to beat Rybakina fairly easily, by 6-3 6-4 and Kostyuk got rid of Juvan by 6-2 7-6.
The semifinals thus, were: Osuigwe vs. Juvan and Kostyuk vs. Carle.
You know I have a special sympathy for Juvan and I found the first match more interesting (I also expected the same to be more levelled than the other semi-final): the match was tight indeed in the first set, which the Slovenian won by 7-5; in the second one, instead, she crushed her opponent by 6-1. Even if Osuigwe was the top seed, I was not surprised by the result: I evaluate a lot Whitney’s tennis, but I think her game is still a bit immature (she is still 15: no surprise in that). She can hit tons of winners and tons of mistakes. I figured that a player with the defensive and tactical skill that Juvan owns could be troublesome to handle for the young American, since I was expecting that after being recovered once, twice, three times in each exchange, the American would have eventually missed (and you can’t afford that against Juvan).
The other semi-final was, instead, closer than I thought: Kostyuk managed to beat Carle, but not effortlessly: the Ukrainian won by 6-3 7-5, being down by 2-5 in the second set: did Flagellum Dei experienced one of her “crazy moments?”.
The favourite of the final was Kostyuk, sure. But I would have placed my money on Juvan, due to the following reasons: a) I would have won more, in case of a Juvan’s victory; b) Juvan has already beaten Kostyuk, even if on clay; c) normally, the player who loses against an opponent during the round robin, manages to win the final he/she may play against the same opponent: this happens so often! Though, I was wrong: even if Juvan took the lead in both sets, she eventually lost. Kostyuk managed to recover in the first set from 2-4 down to 6-4 and, in the second one, from 1-2 (being a break down) to 5-2 and then to close the match by 6-3: thus, she claimed the trophy for herself.
Let’s close the summary with a consideration on the Beloved One: the great news about Juvan is that, in light of the finals reached in Roehampton, of a convincing second round reached on hardcourt in a 60k she played in China immediately before the Junior Masters and some good wins (and losses) during this tournament, it seems that she is no more just a good clay court player, but also a competitive one on fast courts: this is not a surprise, since I believe her game allows her to perform well also on faster surfaces, given her ability at the net and a good capability in accelerating. And, from the stats I record on her, I believe that her problems on first serve, even if not completely solved, have become less material: recently the girl started (at least in some sets) to show from time to time figures higher than 70% of points won on her first serve – in fast courts matches at least. More, I don’t see anymore in her stats those crazy numbers, such as 90% of first serves in, which made me think that at a point, in recent past, she was actually hitting two second serves.
A final notation: I think Wang suffered from a wrist injury, and this may have affected her performances: during the tournament she retired from several matches.
