This year I delayed a bit the usual “road to”, as I preferred to wait for the withdrawal deadline, which has fallen on last Tuesday. Once again, even if a caveat, which will be expressed below and applies to the girls’ event has to be taken in account, attendance list is top notch. This is good since, as the title suggests, the approaching edition of the tournament will be the 60th and we would all like it to be great.
The Italian Open will start on the 20st of May; the qualification rounds will be played during the next weekend.
Let’s begin from the girls’ event: this year only one top-10 girl will attend, and she is n.1 in the junior ranking, Queen Clara Tauson; she does not appear in the entry list, but she will be in the draw: it was clarified in the press conference that presented the tournament that Clara has cancelled herself from the attendance by mistake; thus, she has been granted with a wild card. Also n. 10 of the junior ranking, Qinwen Zheng, was in the acceptance list since a few days ago, but she is no more included, so we can believe she will not compete. Thus, there are many less top 10s than in previous editions, but not much better could be expected since, as I noted in a previous article, no other top10s, but for the above mentioned two, are currently competing on the junior tour (maybe Fernandez will play the remaining slams). And, by the way, thanks to Clara for coming, as her presence was not to be taken for granted indeed. Of course, the cut has been affected by the absence of the top seeded players, as it is set at 82, which is about twelve spots lower than what we usually see.
This year I will place particular attention on Emma Navarro, not only because she is a top seed in the tournament, but also because recently she has performed outstandingly, by reaching the semifinal in the Charleston 100k. Another girl I will closely follow will be Elli Mandlik: last year she dumped me and went to play a grade 2 in Hungary; now she has the opportunity to be forgiven by winning this. Also Helene Pellicano who, after some unlucky attempts on the pro-tour, is currently mainly concentrating on the junior tour and is achieving good results, will be a girl to follow. As per the quali draw, I am happy to see that Anastasia Berezov is enrolled and for sure I will try to give a look at her matches; Viktoria Kanapatskaya will also be interesting to follow: the Belarusian girl currently ranks around 120th spot, as she didn’t play on the junior tour from May 2018 to January 2019; though, she has been a former top 25 and she may well be a hard player to face also for the seeded girls in the main draw.
The situation in the boys’ event is different, as the draw is top notch in any respect. Seven top 10s will attend and the cut is set as 64. This year we possibly have the strongest event of the last four or five editions. The down side of the boys’ tournament is that none of the Italian wonder guys will attend: number 2 in the world ranking, Lorenzo Musetti, is not in the entry list: no surprise as, after his win in the Australian Open, he declared he would have played only Roland Garros and Wimbledon on the junior tour. It seemed that Yannik Sinner would have asked for a wild card, as his junior ranking is not high enough to qualify in the main draw: the wild card arrived, but for the ATP tournament in Rome, in which he even won the first round against top 60 Steve Johnson. A true tennis miracle which will make Sinner famous also outside Italy; though, currently, due to this exploit, the chances to see the Italian rising star in Milan are close to zero. Giulio Zeppieri too, the semifinalist of the last Australian Open, is not included in the entry list. Nevertheless, the defending champion Adrian Andreev, the Australian Open finalist Emilio Nava and Otto Virtanen, beaten by Zeppieri in the quarter finals of the Australian Open, will attend.
As I always do, I recommend you to visit the tournament’s Facebook page, where you can find pics of past legendary champions and of recent ones too: https://www.facebook.com/pg/tennisclubmilanoalbertobonacossa/photos/?tab=album&album_id=482589065110342.
Now, the few usual lines also on the entry list of the Città Di Santa Croce Grade 1, which is about to start. The first seed in the girls’ event is Korean Park, ranked 25th in the junior ranking. Twenty six top 100 girls will attend the event; my Australian Anastasia Berezov is admitted directly in the main draw. Also the boys’ event is not super exciting as only one top 10 will attend, the Chinese Yunchaokete.
It is possible to follow the Santa Croce tournament on http://www.tcsantacroce.com/live/. Qualification rounds have started on 12th of May.
